Personal Growth: Teddy Lupin
by Austen2388
Summary: Teddy had it all figured out: do well in school, get a good job, and live the life his parent's dreamed of. But when he realizes he has feelings for his easy-going best friend, Victoire, Teddy finds out that growing up is more complicated than it looks.
1. Leap

"**Children, wake up! Hold your mistake up, before they turn the summer into dust. If the children don't grow up; our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up."**

**- Wake Up by Arcade Fire**

The ocean spread out before Teddy's eyes, shimmering like silk beneath a tremendously blue sky, and he couldn't resist changing the color of his eyes to mimic the glittering blue expanse.

"On the count of three," Victoire said, holding out her hand for him, her best friend, to take. Teddy could tell that she was nervous by the way she stood so still, the breeze whipping her long blonde hair out behind her like a flag. He grasped her hand and felt her relax a little.

The inseparable duo stood with their backs to Shell Cottage, dressed only in their bathing suits. Their shoes, clothes, and wands lay discarded on the ground behind them. In front of them, the land ended abruptly in a sheer cliff that dropped twenty feet into the salty depths below.

They had been planning this moment since they had arrived home from Hogwarts for the summer, waiting for the most benign weather, the distraction of the adults, and the absence of Victoire's younger relatives. This day, Harry's birthday to be exact, had dawned bright and warm and the family had assembled at Shell Cottage to celebrate. Currently, all the adults were busy cleaning up the mess made by Roxy and Fred's rather fantastic addition of their father's fireworks to Harry's cake and restraining the little ones from eating the remains from the grassy lawn. When Teddy and Victoire slipped away, his grandmother and Molly Weasley Sr. were attempting to salvage the rest of the food from the table while Ginny was attempting to remove cake from Harry's robes, and the other adults were all wrestling cake splattered children into the house to get cleaned up.

So here they were, facing the precipice. Conditions were perfect.

"1…2…3," Victoire counted off with a shout. Hands still clasped they took off running towards the edge of the cliff, and with a great leap they jumped off the edge.

Relinquishing the control that his last three years of Hogwarts had attempted to teach him, Teddy let the magic flow freely through his body. Beside him, Victoire did the same, allowing them to remain in the air longer than gravity should've allowed. They easily cleared the narrow strip of pebbled shoreline beneath the cliff before they began their plunge into the water below. Teddy was overwhelmed by the sound of breaking waves, whistling wind, Victoire's delighted shriek beside him, and the rapid beating of his own heart, all the sounds reverberating in his ears like a natural symphony.

That leap off the cliff had been the most exhilarating moment of Teddy Lupin's young life. Until now.

* * *

Teddy stood chest deep in the Black Lake on the eve of his graduation from Hogwart's, Victoire standing on his feet to remain comfortably above the water. The full moon hung above them, basking the scene in a silvery glow. Their laughter had died out a few seconds earlier, perhaps because their proximity to one another made them acutely aware that they were clad only in their underwear. And they were not children anymore.

Teddy couldn't be sure if Victoire was uncomfortable because her blonde hair was covering her face, and, without thinking, he reached up to brush it out of her face. His hand lingered on her cheek, and he brushed his thumb across her smooth skin. Victoire looked up at him, prompting his heart to beat even more rapidly than it already was. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he was about to make a mistake, but he took the risk and kissed her.

Victoire remained very still for a moment before responding, timidly at first and then passionately, moving her hands up from where they had rested on his upper arms for balance to wrap around his neck, her fingers curling into his torquoise hair. He wrapped his arms around her waist, cradling her elegant back, and causing their torsos to press together. And this lasted for a blissful thirty seconds, before Victoire suddenly pulled away. Confused, Teddy kept his arms around her until she placed both palms on his chest and shoved him away.

"Vic?" he asked, a terrible feeling of dread crashing over him.

She didn't respond except to look up at him, misery and fear twisting her delicate features, tears seeping from her blue eyes. "Why," she sobbed, "Teddy, why?"

"Why did I kiss you?" he asked still in shock over the nasty turn of events.

Victoire nodded violently and wrapped her arms protectively around her slender waist. "I trusted you. I thought you were d-different from all—all the other—b-boys."

Teddy clamped his jaw shut instinctively, too frightened, too unused to speaking about his own emotions to respond. Prompted by his silence, perhaps sensing that she was being shut out, Victoire turned away from him and began walking back to the shore her sobs slowing with every step. And, like a fool, Teddy let her go, carefully averting his gaze when she stepped out of the water and slipped her silver party dress over her head. And when she began walking back towards the castle, he didn't call her name and didn't make to go after her. He just stood there in the water, feeling as though he had ruined everything.

* * *

Cold water swallowed Teddy as he plunged into the ocean, shooting painfully up his nose and stinging his eyes. The current tugged on him, loosening the grip he had on Victoire's hand. As he was buoyed back up the surface a wave crashed over him, sending him tumbling in the water and pulling Victoire from his grasp. He frantically scrambled through the water, inhaling deeply as he broke the surface. Immediately, he began searching for Victoire, fear nagging at him with each passing second he didn't see a head of blonde hair or laughing blue eyes. His own hair changed from his favorite torquoise color to a sandy brown as he lost control of his metamorphagus abilities.

Vic!" he cried, twirling in the water, "Victoire!" Another wave passed blocking his view, but when it cleared he spotted Victoire floating face up, eyes closed, in a couple of inches of shallow water near the shore. He swam to her as fast he could, struggling to walk through the water when it became too shallow to swim.

Panic seized his chest, making it painful to breathe as he knelt besider her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and called her name. "Vic," he half-sobbed when she didn't respond. "Help!" he shouted, hoping that the adults had noticed their absence and were looking for them. "Help!"

There was a snort of laughter.

Teddy looked back down at Victoire's unconscious form, which appeared to be biting back a smile.

"Vic?"

Her eyes flew open as she broke into wicked giggles. Teddy went red in the face as anger and embarrassment swelled inside him. "The look on your face!" she gasped through her laughter.

"It wasn't funny!" Teddy yelled as he turned away from her in anger, water lapping at his shins.

"Come on, Ted!" she said, continuing to laugh, "it was a little funny!"

"You shouldn't pretend like that; I thought you were really hurt." He said through gritted teeth, refusing to look at her.

Her laughing stopped. "Hey, Ted," she cooed, reaching forward to touch his shoulder lightly. He shrugged her hand away violently. "Teddy, I'm sorry. I didn't think I'd scare you that much."

"Well, yeah…whatever." He snorted.

"You really care about me, don't you?" She said, tentatively placing her hand on his shoulder again. He didn't push her away this time.

"You're my best friend, Vic." He said meekly.

"I love you, Teddy!" she cried as she jumped on his back, causing them to both topple over.

"Ugh, Vic!" he said a little breathlessly as Victoire was on top of him. "How much did you eat today, " he teased.

She ignored his jibe and commenced tickling him.

"Stop, stop, please," Teddy laughed at he tried to squirm away.

"Admit that you love me and I'll stop!"

"Vic, come on…please!" Teddy futieley attempted to curl into a ball to protect himself.

"Say 'I love you too, Victoire' and I will cease my torture."

"Fine," he gasped, tears running down his cheeks, "I love you too, Vic."

"You mean it?" She asked, stopping her torture as promised.

"You're my best friend; Of course, I love you," was his honest answer, though he added playfully, "But I only said it because I really have to pee, so get off."

Victoire pulled a face that suggested just how gross she thought boys were and hastily stood up.

Teddy stood and turned to run back up the narrow winding path back up to the cottage from the beach neighboring the cliff, but instead found a steady stream of adult relatives running down it. Harry and Bill were in front, with their wands out and at the ready. As they reached the bottom of the path, Bill and Harry were overtaken by Fluer, who was clutching Victoire's discarded sundress to her chest and crying for her daughter.

Victoire and Teddy quickly found themselves surrounded by anxious adults who morphed into angry adults when they learned that Teddy and Victoire had leapt from the cliff above them. Neither he nor Victoire mentioned the trick she had played on him, allowing the adults to believe that Teddy had called for help as a lark. They stood in the kitchen of Shell Cottage, wrapped in the towels that Harry hand conjured for them, hearing a lecture on the war and about how stupid it was to willingly endanger themselves. But nothing was a bad for Teddy than Harry's words. Not Bill and Fleur's anger, not his grandmother's terrified face as she ran down the path towards him, or having to spend the entire last month of the summer away from Victoire, made guilt twist inside him like it did when Harry, who had so far remained silent, turned his penetrating green eyes on him and spoke.

"You look so much like your father right now," he said quietly. Teddy actually found this statement quite annoying as that was what everybody said when he was upset and lost the ability to metamorph, It caused his appearance to revert back to the sandy brown hair and chocolate eyes that he had inherited naturally from his father allowing the less noticeable features, like the shape of his jaw and his thin build, to amplify his resemblance to Remus. But Harry wasn't done speaking. "I hate having to say this, Teddy, because I hated it when Remus told it to me in my 3rd year but I think I should. Your parents died so that you could have a brighter, happier future, don't throw their sacrifice away for a laugh."

After that, the rest of his time at Shell Cottage passed in a daze as he dressed, finally allowed to use the restroom, and made his goodbyes. He heard someone call after him as he walked across the lawn with his grandmother. Turning around, he saw Victoire break free of her mother's grasp and run towards him. She threw her arms around his neck in a hug, and whispered into his ear, "Thank you for not telling them about the trick I played."

"No problem, Vic."

As she pulled away, she smiled and said quietly, "Jumping off the cliff was worth all this mess, you know?"

Teddy smiled back at her and nodded, waved goodbye, and walked to the apparition point where his grandmother was waiting.

* * *

Teddy didn't know how much time had passed before he finally decided to get out of the water. He dressed slowly, reflecting on the moments that had brought him to this point.


	2. Secrets

"_**She left a week to roam. You're protector's coming home. Keep you secrets with you, safe from the outside."**_

**Your Protector by Fleet Foxes**

Teddy left the Prefect's compartment at the front of the train after tossing a handful of dungbombs into the "Confiscated" bin. He cast a spell over his hands to clean them, relishing the fact that he was now seventeen and would be able to use magic even after he got off the train. He pushed his green hair out his face and tiredly rubbed his eyes as he set off towards the back of the train to look for Victoire—his Prefect's duties for this year officially over.

Though he popped his head in on several compartments full of family friends, Weasleys, and classmates, Teddy wasn't very surprised to find Victoire sitting by herself.

Victoire's fourth year of Hogwarts had been lonely, coinciding, not coincidentally, with the onset of raging teenage hormones. Not only did she have Veela blood, but the hormones and pheromones to accompany it. She looked a full two years older than she actually was, much to Bill Weasley's horror. Boys suddenly began to stare at, pester, and pursue her, and girls, whom were turned hostile by Victoire's Veela pheromones, distanced themselves from her or openly began to spread rumors. 1/8 the blood, but none of the self-posession of a Veela made Victoire vulnerable. Well, as vulnerable as Gryffindor House's Quidditch keeper could be. Teddy didn't truly understand how Victoire could bravely face hostile athletes wielding bats and bludgers but have her feelings hurts by gossip. That was until he really began to hear the gossip following her break-up from Roger Davies II, a Ravenclaw boy in Teddy's year.

"I heard that she slept with him." Teddy heard one of his female classmates whisper in Charms from the table behind his.

"Well, then she can add Roger to that extensive list, can't she?" Her friend replied, and both girls sniggered derisively.

And on the way to Flitwick's musical ensemble practice, levitating his upright base in front of him, he heard a 5th year boy tell his friend that Victoire had begged Roger not to breakup with her. Needless to say, the young Ravenclaw was surprised when Teddy suddenly sentenced him with detention for looking funny.

Other than the occasional abuse of power to defend Vic's honor, Teddy ignored all the rumors and sneers. He did not pry into to the true nature of her and Roger's breakup, and Victoire did not volunteer any information. He just stood by her side as always, like he had that night when she snuck into the Gryffindor 6th year boy's dormitory and woke him up bearing the news.

* * *

Teddy sat bolt upright when Victoire tapped him awake, surprised to see her standing next to his bed looking very pale and shaken in the moonlight.

"Roger and I broke up," she croaked before breaking into sobs. He quickly removed the scarlet blanket from himself and wrapped it tightly around Victoire, pulling her into a tight bear hug. He cast the Muffliato charm around his bed hangings and let her cry into his chest until they fell asleep.

"Good morning," he mouthed when they had been woken up by the sounds of his roommates getting ready. Vic smiled back at him from where she was wrapped like a spring roll in his blanket, her eyes puffy and red.

Apparently noticing his own blanketless state for the first time, she whispered, "Aren't you cold?" Victoire attempted to extract herself from the scarlet comforter with the intention of sharing, but had only accomplished making a good deal of noise including one particularly high-pitched squeal when she had almost rolled off the bed.

"Ted?" He heard Brian, his roommate ask. Obviously, the Muffliatio charm had worn off. "Are you awake, mate?" Footsteps were moving closer to his bed. Victoire looked panicked, so Teddy reached under his pillow for his wand, indicated that she be quiet, and quickly cast a Disillusionment Charm over her.

A moment later, his bed hangings were violently opened. Teddy covered his face with his arm and pretended to have just woken up. "Close the curtains, you prat, I'm trying to sleep."

"Prat? What about you, lazy bum; it's almost time for lunch and we've got to study for our Transfiguration exam!" Brian exclaimed, somewhat anxiously as he had been struggling in their N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration class.

Teddy groaned dramatically. "Go on down, I'll meet you in the Great Hall."

Brian, however, seemed unsatisfied and lingered by the bed, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. Teddy raised an eyebrow in question. "I thought you may have had a girl up here," he said, awkwardly scratching his nose, "I heard a squeal." Brian said the last word slowly as though he didn't believe that Teddy could have made such a noise.

Victoire kicked her leg out impulsively, accidentally kneeing Teddy where it really, really hurt. His eyes watered. He cried out, his voice rising to an unnaturally high-pitch as he spastically reached forward to clutch his groin, but thought of Brian's presence and grabbed his upper leg instead. In the commotion, Teddy felt Victoire tumble unseen from the narrow bed. Brian was left confused as to why his friend was suddenly withering around like he had just been kicked in the Gobstones. "Did you hear something like that?" Teddy gasped.

"Yeah. Mate, are you all right?"

Teddy nodded vigorously, tears streaming embarrassingly down his beet red face. "Leg cramp, terrible leg cramp," he lied, "I'll—meet—you downstairs."

Finally satisfied, Brian nodded and turned to walk out of the dorm, looking back toward Teddy as though he were vomiting slugs. He eventually left, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like "toss pot."

The dorm now empty, Teddy lifted the charm off of Victoire. It was not an easy task considering he was still thrashing around in pain.

"Sorry," she groaned from the floor. The sound of her fall had been muted by Teddy's cry of pain. She extracted herself from the blanket and stood, her appearance finally fully revealed to Teddy. Her hair was tangled and her knee high socks pooled at her ankles, both of which could have been the result of this morning. However, her shirt, which had seemed misbuttoned in the dark, was actually missing buttons. Several scenarios on the nature of Victoire and Roger's break-up played in Teddy's mind—most of which made him want to hex Roger Davies's scumbag face into oblivion.

"Don't worry about it," Teddy finally replied to her apology, pulling his eyes away from her unkempt appearance to meet her eyes. He had to clear his voice to get it to return to its normal pitch. He wanted to ask her about the preceding night, but thought better of it.

However, some of what he was thinking must have shown on his face, because Victoire said, " I don't really feel like talking about it right now." Looking sad, she crawled back onto the bed and wrapped her arms tightly around his middle. Teddy squeezed her back, hoping to comfort her. "You're the only boy I can trust," she declared, her voice vibrating in his chest.

* * *

"Thank Merlin, that's finally over," he said by way of greeting as he entered the compartment, pulling his wand and a book from the pockets of his robes. In quick succession, Teddy had shrugged off his school robes, tie, sweater vest and shirt to reveal a faded band t-shirt hidden beneath the whole lot.

"You know, for someone who supposedly likes rules, you certainly waste no time in getting out of that uniform." Victoire said, barely wasting a glance on him as she changed the color of her nails with her wand.

Teddy looked offended as he ruffled his green hair. "I do not like rules; I'm just clever enough not to get caught breaking them." And as if to prove his point, he pulled a confiscated Fanged Frisbee out of the pocket of his discarded robe and tossed it at Victoire. She caught it easily with the hand she had previously been holding out towards the window, attempting to decide if she liked her newly orange nails.

_Damn Weasley Quidditch skills. _Teddy thought.

"Someone's stuck up" Victoire sing-songed, referring to his previous comment.

"Brat."

"Goody two-shoes."

"Veela."

"Wart-hogged face baffoon."

Teddy raised an eyebrow before scrunching up his face and morphing his nose into a pig snout. Victoire gave him a wide, mischievous grin. It was a beautiful smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. And he had been hoping to make her laugh.

Made uncomfortable by Victoire's lingering unhappiness, he buried himself in his book, the book that he had never shown anyone since he had found it in the attic—not even Victoire or Harry. It looked like an old copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, beat up from frequent use and yellowed with age. But Teddy knew better. He opened it up to the cover page, which read:

_This book belongs to Remus John Lupin._

Silently, Teddy thought "This journal is the property of Moony." The book gave a small shudder. Teddy turned to a page he had marked with a picture of him and Victoire playing a duet on the piano. The entry on Flobberworms disappeared, and was replaced with his father's neat handwriting, the ink faded a little from age.

_June 27__th__, 1977_

_On the train again. Sixth year is over and our final year looms ahead. I say—write—looms because I cannot help but thinking on it with dread. My last year at Hogwarts, my last year under the protection of Dumbledore, with this terrible evil moving over England, I fear that life will never be as peaceful or as easy as it is now. How I envy my friends! Prongs is excitedly talking about following his father into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, confident that he will do well enough on his N.E.W.T.S to get into Auror training. Padfoot is, of course, thinking along the same lines. And let's face it, despite having broken every school rule, everyone knows they will accomplish exactly what they set out to do. And me? By law, I am not allowed to work at the Ministry, or be a Healer like Lily wants to. Plus, I'm rubbish at Potions…_

_But enough of this self-pity, Remus. Someone has to cheer up this compartment. Ever since Lily and Anne stopped by to talk to me, James has done nothing but draw L.E.s onto a spare bit of parchment and occasionally roll his eyes whenever Sirius reads off another ad for flats from __The Prophet__. Prongs doesn't understand why Padfoot feels this need to move out of the Potters now that he's seventeen, but pride is the simple answer. Plus, as Sirius has suggested more than once, it will be a great place to bring girls. Pete's been building a rather impressive house of cards out of an Exploding Snap set; I am considering causing it to explode. Pete will get singed, Sirius and James will laugh and then they will stop being so damn morose and serious. That's my department. Sorry, Wormtail, you're taking one for the team…_

_Oh, another thought. Prongs keeps shooting (dare I say it?) empathetic glances in my direction since he caught me staring—avidly, I hate to admit—at Anne earlier. I think he's on to me. I mean, I'm not mad about her the way he is about Lily; I just happen to find it intriguing that her eyes are the same color as the lining of her Ravenclaw robes . . ._

An annoyed tut drew Teddy out of his teenage father's words. He looked up to see the light blue eyes of his best friend trained on the book as though it had mortally offended her. This happened almost every time he pulled it out. Teddy suspected her annoyance had something to do with the fact that he had never shared the secret of what was supposedly his father's old textbook with her. He sighed, and moved the picture of the two of them together, now smiling at each other and singing "Rock the Casbah" to mark his place.

He looked up at Victoire, but she was staring out the window, sitting on her hands and looking apprehensive. After a moment, Ted turned back to his book but before he could begin reading…

"I didn't…"

"Sorry?" Teddy inquired, setting the book aside.

"I did--," Victoire began again, but again her voice failed her. She took a deep breath, apparently concentrating very hard on not looking at him. "I didn't have sex with Roger," she blurted out, her face turning trademark Weasley red.

Teddy suddenly felt very warm and fidgety. He brought his feet down from the seat and set them on the floor. He and Victoire had never talked about their relationships with other boys and girls. It had always seemed a taboo subject between two people who had spent most of their summers together making mud pies and climbing trees. Not that Teddy had much to say on the subject anyway. Sure, he had asked a couple of girls to Hogsmeade and had snogged Kara Adams in a broom closet a few times, but he had never had a girlfriend. Between his studies, Prefect duties, music practice, commentary for the Quidditch games, keeping all the various Weasley's from doing anything too stupid, and hanging out with Victoire and his dormmates, Teddy never had the time or, honestly, the desire to spend most of his waking hours with am undoubtedly silly girl. Not that he didn't spend most of his waking hours with Victoire, but she really wasn't a girl. Was she?

Teddy let his eyes wander over Victoire for the first time. Her small hands were resting in her lap, her nails now a dusty rose color and her wrists looking impossibly delicate. He brought his eyes up. Long silvery blonde hair cascaded around her face and over her collarbone that peeked out prettily from the V-shaped neckline of her shirt. His eyes continued to follow the neckline of her shirt, but, with a jolt of realization, he averted his gaze.

Victoire was a _girl_, a gorgeous, fit, almost-a-woman girl with nice skin.

"Teddy?" Victoire was giving him a questioning look, causing the skin between her eyebrows to pinch together. Her cheeks were still slightly flushed from her confession.

_Right_, Teddy thought, _I haven't said anything yet._

He cleared his throat. "I never thought you had…slept…with him."

Victoire smiled weakly up at him, before dropping her gaze again and gulping. "Roger—he wanted to, but I—I didn't. He—er—got a bit aggressive, so I pushed him off, told him to stay away from me and ran. "

Teddy was aghast. Concern for his best friend mixed with rage at Roger Davies II was causing his heart to beat painfully fast. By the look on Victoire's face he could tell his hair had lost its green color.

"Oh, please, don't be upset, Ted!" Victoire pleaded, crossing the compartment to sit next to him.

But if Teddy was made this upset by the incident, than he couldn't imagine the emotional bedlam Vic was going through. Sympathy washed over him, allowing him to regain control of his emotions. He took a deep breath and willed his hair emerald green again.

"Don't worry about me," he said, shaking his head, " How are you?"

Victoire laughed and took his hand in both of her own. "I'm fine, Teddy; I have you."

Teddy's facial expression lightened for a moment before a dark scowl crossed his normally cheerful features. "I wish you had told me sooner, so I—"

"So you could what, Teddy? Kick his arse from here to Norway?"

"It's an appealing thought."

"What? And ruin your chances at becoming Head Boy?" Victoire shook her head incredulous. "There was no way I was going to let you throw that away on me."

Teddy met Victoire's gaze for the first time since this conversation began. He felt sad that Vic actually thought so little of herself that she wouldn't tell him her woes for fear he'd do something brash and jeopardize his shot at Head Boy. It was trivial compared to how much he cared for her. " I wouldn't be throwing anything away."

"Well, he's not worth it anyway."

"But you are."

Victoire smiled at him, a little sadly herself as though Teddy was missing a major point to her argument. She chose to drop the subject, however, and asked Teddy to play something. "It will make me feel better."

Teddy gladly consented, and stood to begin rummaging around in his magically expanded trunk for his guitar, a slow, steady anger continuing to pulse through his system.

**A/N: So here is a nice long chapter! I envisioned Teddy as a musician, becuase I wanted him to resemble his parents and not be just like the Weasleys and the Potters. So I suppose that he really likes Quidditch, but since his mum was a klutz and Remus was never athletic, I think he doesn't play. And then I figured, his mum loved music and his dad was studious and I went a-ha!--he's one of those people who can play like 6 different instruments! Oh, and I figured if there was a Marauder who would keep a journal, it would be Remus since he had such a lonely childhood and was kind of tormented. And then I was like---I should make it like the Marauders map, because those are the kind of enchantments Moony wouldn't have been able to pass up using more than once. Hope you enjoy! Reviews are always appreciated. **


	3. Teddy's Favorite Song

"**Oh Pobrecita! Tragic little teacup, did he go and shatter you again? But the way that you're crying is more like a lion, who licks her wounds before she seeks revenge."**

**The Lion and the Teacup by Bishop Allen**

The rest of the train ride back to London passed more or less uneventfully. At least, there were no more dark confessions on either Teddy or Victoire's part. At one point, however, there was a loud bang that shook the carriage. Teddy and Victoire had one moment to exchange curious glances before their compartment door was wrenched open, letting in a rancid smell and Freddie and Roxy Weasley.

"Hide us!" They screeched before diving beneath the seats on either side of the compartment, no easy feat considering how tall they both were. Not a moment later, the compartment door was violently opened again revealing the disgruntled forms of a group of Slytherins, each one of them covered in feathers and what appeared to be rotten eggs.

"Weasley," the middle one, and apparently the leader (probably because he was the ugliest), growled upon catching sight of Victoire, "where are your cousins?"

"Which ones?" Victoire asked innocently, the affect minimized by the fact that she was holding her mouth over her hand and nose.

The ugly Slytherin blinked and stared blankly for a moment. Obviously, he had forgotten how many Weasleys there were and was now trying to figure out which ones he was after. "The one's who did this so I can teach them a lesson."

Teddy made a noise of mock disapproval from his side of the compartment. The Slytherins jumped as a unit, apparently only now registering his presence. "I wouldn't be so hasty to make threats," Teddy said casually, slipping his robes back over his shoulders as he stood and revealed the silver Prefects badge shining there.

The ugly one mumbled something incoherent, gave a signal to the others with his hand, and turned out of the compartment. The Slytherins trudged off, a trail of feathers flitting out behind them.

As soon as the compartment door slid shut again, there was an outbreak of giggling from below the seats.

"Ok, guys," Teddy said, "spill."

"We've been stealing eggs from the kitchens for months," Freddie explained as he extracted himself out from under Victoire's seat.

"But we just didn't know who," Roxy joined, after unhooking a reddish brown braid that had gotten caught on the underside of the seat.

"But then we saw them."

"A whole compartment full of them, everyone of them a—"

"Slytherin," Fred finished for his twin sister.

"And then it was just a matter of a flick of the wrist, and—"

"_Wingardium Leviosa," _Fred squeaked in an uncanny impersonation of Professor Flitwick. "And a firework for good measure."

"I do hope the House Elves don't mind too much that we destroyed a few pillows," Roxy finished up reflectively. Obviously, some of Hermione's lectures had gotten through to the twelve-year old.

Fred and Roxy fell silent then, looking at Victoire and Teddy with a mix of excitement and apprehension. They looked remarkably similar to each other, even for fraternal twins. They were tall and athletically built, with skin like caramel, a head of tight red-brown curls (though Roxy wore hers long and braided), George's jaw, and mischievous brown eyes. It had become apparent to the entire family that they had also inherited their father's penchant for troublemaking when at the tender age of five-and-a-half they put ants in their Uncle Percy's socks. Molly Weasley had burst into tears of joy on the occasion (fondly remembering her lost son's antics) while George had never looked more proud, and even Percy had managed a small, nostalgic smile in between his frantic scratching. After that first reception, who could blame them for seeking an audience now?

Victoire and Teddy looked at the twins, then looked at each other, and then back at the twins before they burst into laughter. The apprehension drained away from Fred and Roxy's faces and they made themselves at home in the compartment chatting excitedly about their plans for the summer. Teddy pulled out his guitar again and made them all laugh with a silly song about a hippogriff and the numerous animals he befriends, changing his appearance whenever a new character arrived.

Victoire's sister, Dominique, and Percy's daughter, Molly—who just finished their third year—dropped into the compartment to tell them all that a gang of smelly Slytherins were on a war path to find Roxy and Fred. When they had asked where their cousins were, the girls had pointed to each other. A distinctly ruffled looking Louis Weasley, going into the second year with Fred and Roxy, arrived shortly after the other girls, saying he just had to dive into a loo to hide from a 'bunch of feathered trolls' chasing him and screaming "where are your cousins?"

Unfortunately, it had been a girl's restroom. Louis sat on the floor upon finishing his story, seeing as all the seats in the compartment were now taken.

The ugly Slytherins came back into the compartment shortly before the train began to slow, marking their imminent arrival in London. The leader blinked a few times after throwing open the compartment door, the characteristic question dying in his throat as he saw all of the Weasleys and Teddy together in the same compartment. Teddy had even decided to imitate Molly and Louis's flaming red hair for the occasion. The Slytherins stood awestruck.

"Just keep walking there, smelly," Dominque said, raising the wand that had been resting in her lap.

The ugly Slytherins seemed to think it best to obey.

The threat neutralized, the cousins dispersed back to their own compartments and friends, leaving Teddy and Victoire alone in their compartment once more. Teddy had just finished repacking his guitar when the train began to sidle up to the platform.

"I swear, Uncle Harry has a sixth sense about what compartment we're going to be in," exclaimed Victoire.

Teddy turned to look out the window, where a large number of redheaded adults stood together on the platform, surrounding a tall man with messy black hair holding a small, redheaded girl in his arms. Teddy and Victoire waved to the Weasleys and the Potters. He swore he saw George pass a smirking Bill Weasley a handful of gold and had the distinct impression that George had bet that Harry wouldn't be able to pick the compartment.

Leaving their packed trunks for the conductors to remove from the train, Teddy and Victoire made their way down the narrow corridor running into Roger Davies II and his cronies along the way.

Victoire pulled up instinctively, drawing nearer to Teddy in the process and drawing his attention to Roger and his friends. The boys' eyes were roaming over her, a common occurrence that Teddy, like Victoire, usually ignored. Though it now filled him with a sense of protectiveness. Ever since Roger had spread those disgusting stories around Hogwarts, there seemed to be a slightly different gleam in the eyes of the gawking boys, and Teddy hated to imagine the thoughts that ran through their minds. Still, that wasn't nearly as bothersome as Davies himself. While the others finished their audit of Victoire quickly, Davies eyes lingered in their assessment. His lips twitched into a smirk that suggested he had an intimate knowledge of what lay beneath her t-shirt. The dull, throbbing anger that Teddy had felt since Victoire had told him about her break-up flared up with a passion that, even in his highly-charged state, Teddy recognized had a tinge of possessiveness to it. He glared at Roger, who smirked wider.

Spurred on by Teddy's protectiveness, Davies reached a hand out towards Victoire's arm. "You know, Victoire.." Teddy heard him say, but the rest of the words were drowned out by an odd sort of ringing in his ears as he watched Victoire's reaction. While her expression remained blank, she stiffened and clenched her jaw. The hair on her arms stood on end. She was frightened, a rare occasion for Victoire and such a subtle display that Teddy was quite sure that only he knew her well enough to pick up on it.

Almost without thinking, Teddy stepped forward and clasped her hand in his own, hoping to ease her fear as he did years ago before they leapt from the cliff. The action also pushed Roger's hand away just as his fingertips brushed against her arm. He turned to Roger and growled in a dangerously low voice, "Don't ever touch her again, Davies. Don't look at her. Don't speak to or about her. Do you understand?"

Teddy was surprised to see Roger's wicked grin falter a little as he stepped back from him, and he was even more shocked by the mingled look of awe and worry on Victoire's face as he steered her past Roger and into the slightly roomier vestibule area of the train car. But before they could step off the train, before the heat subsided from Teddy's face, before the ringing could drain from his ears, before his racing heart could slow, Roger just had to open his mouth.

"Who do you think you are, Lupin? Her brother? Or, now that I've had her, do you fancy yourself her boyfriend?"

A part of Teddy's consciousness that wasn't involved in the swinging back of his right fist knew that punching Roger Davies II sneering face wasn't the most adult way to deal with this situation, especially if he wanted that Head Boy badge. Still, he turned to face his foe, fist curled and flying. It all happened so fast that Roger didn't even have time to be shocked by this sudden burst of testosterone from mild-mannered Lupin.

But to Teddy, it seemed as if time and space slowed down to give him just enough time to process why he was punching Davies, other than for being a smarmy git. It wasn't so much that he had frightened and hurt his best friend by spreading lies and rumors around Hogwarts, but that the effect of which dimmed Victoire's bright smile and chased the laughter from her eyes. While others might look upon her like a marble goddess, Teddy knew she was far from being made of stone and that her true beauty lay within the spirit Davies was slowly crushing to serve his own pride. Tampering with such brilliance was like ripping the melody from a song, leaving the right hand to wander aimlessly over the keyboard never knowing if it was being dissonant or harmonic.

And Victoire was Teddy's favorite song. Each day spent with her was like a new movement to an infinite symphony. The bass was provided by his heart beating in time to her footsteps as the walked down to breakfast. Victoire's voice was the melody, and her words and inflections were variations on the same spirited theme, ranging from confidential whispers to crescendos of delighted laughter. Occasionally, the music was punctuated by a sob that only Teddy was allowed to hear and pierced his heart like the lonely cry of an oboe. And everyday ended as it had started, with his heart keeping time with her footsteps as she headed up the girl's staircase to bed.

That was it. That was the moment. The moment when his knuckles collided with Roger Davies II face was the first time it ever occurred to Teddy Lupin that his feelings for his best friend might have developed into something more.

There wasn't much time to dwell on his epiphany after that as time returned to normal speed and, all of a sudden, Teddy found himself engaged in a fistfight. He ducked to avoid Roger's retaliatory blow, converting it into a tackle that sent both teenage boys flying out of the open doorway of the Hogwarts express onto Platform 9 ¾ to a chorus of gasps and alarmed screams. Teddy barely heard Victoire cry shrilly that Roger wasn't worth it, but anger continued to pound in his ears blocking all reason.

His opponent narrowly missed cracking his head on the concrete, but could not dodge the wallop that Teddy delivered to the side of his head. Roger was now throwing blind punches to Teddy's side. Teddy pushed down on Roger's shoulders in an attempt to stand and extract himself from the fight. Roger clung fast to the front of his t-shirt causing the two of them to log roll over. Teddy took one punch to the face from Davies, but moved his head in time to avoid the second, causing Roger to punch the ground instead. Cradling his injured hand, Roger didn't move in time to avoid taking Teddy's knee to his groin. He retreated, hunched over with his back to the scarlet steam engine. Teddy wasted no time in standing and moved menacingly forward to confront his opponent.

"I warned you," he growled, "that if you ever talked about Victoire that way again that you were going to pay, didn't I?" Roger stood petrified. "Didn't I?" Teddy brought his fist back again.

A strong hand gripped his raised fist, holding it back. "That's enough, Ted." Harry, his godfather, instructed. His voice cut through Teddy's anger like a knife. The pounding rage suddenly died, and Teddy became aware of the chugging noise of the train, the distant laughter and conversations of other students and their families, and Victoire's shallow breathing from where she stood beside him. He turned to look at his godfather, who released his arm. Teddy slowly turned on the spot and took in the shocked faces of the Weasleys, the Potters, and his grandmother. It looked as though even Molly and Arthur had shown up to welcome their grandchildren home for the summer. Feeling sheepish, he swept a hand through his hair, straightened his t-shirt, and began to walk towards the family.

"Fuck all, Lupin. Didn't your parents teach you any manners, or haven't you got any?" Roger Davies sneered from his position by the train. Both Teddy and Harry bristled in orphan camaraderie, but it was Victoire who delivered a downward thrusted punch to Roger's nose, sending a sickening crunching noise through the air. Roger cried out in pain and clutched his broken and bleeding nose. She curled one delicate hand around the front of his robes, lifting him slightly.

"Leave us alone, Davies," she spat before releasing him. Roger just gaped at her with wide eyes as though a butterfly had just attacked him. Victoire turned to join Teddy and Harry standing a few feet away. Teddy and her engaged in a ridiculously long and complicated hand shake, that involved both hands and one foot each and had served as their "secret handshake" since the age of eight and six respectively. But Teddy knew they were growing up when immediately upon finishing their ritual a look of extreme annoyance came over Victoire's face as she noticed a crack in one of her rose colored nails.

"Mum," she cried with a heavy sigh, and strode forward to show Fleur her broken nail. Fleur, lips pursed together, gave her daughter an extremely disapproving look though Bill Weasley, who considered all non-relative males and Teddy as threats to his daughters' safety and comfort, looked pleased that his 'little princess' just beat the tar out of some bloke.

Teddy turned to Harry as mother and daughter began conversing in French. "That was the first fight I've ever been in." He said proudly.

"I'd say you did rather well," Harry said, looking on the verge of laughter. "Though, I guess we'll have to have a talk about how much I disapprove of such behavior later."

Teddy merely shrugged, as George threw an arm around his shoulder and said in a jovial voice, "Teddy, have I ever told you to never bet against your Godfather?"

Teddy laughed out loud, as the family swept him up for a round of bone-crushing hugs and animated greetings.

It wasn't until much later that night when Teddy was in bed, that he was able to reflect on his newly discovered feelings for Victoire. It seemed strange to think of her in any other way than the truly platonic, and so he tried to dismiss his earlier revelation as runaway sentimentality brought on by the highly emotional situation. He vowed to put away his sheet music by the great Romantic composers for a little while, less they turn him into a complete fool. Still, Teddy couldn't sleep and, with a resigned sigh, turned his bedside lamp back on and turned on his side to stare at the tri-fold picture frame on his bedside table. The faces of his parents and his infant self smiled back at him, and the next picture was of the Potters and himself, taken at a Quidditch game four years previous. Yet, it was the third picture that captivated his attention until he finally dozed off. Victoire laughed down at him from where she was poised on his picture self's back—who was also laughing—with her arms and leg wrapped around his torso.


	4. All Work and No Play

"**It turned out to be the howling of a dog. Or a wolf to be exact, the sound sent shivers down my back, but I was drawn into the pack. And before long, they allowed me to join in and sing their song."**

**-Furr by Blitzen Trapper**

Teddy opened his eyes and looked at the stand of trees that surrounded his grandmother's house. With a sigh, he picked up the sheets of blank music paper and tried to scribble down the notes he had heard while listening to his surroundings. The sound of the wind ruffling the summer foliage had a celestial quality to it that he couldn't quite capture yet. The breeze picked up, setting nature singing again, and he smiled to himself as he drew a sixteenth note onto the page.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The scenery was cast in pinks and yellows as the sun slipped down towards the horizon, and Teddy could easily trace the outline of the full moon from his perch on the front steps. Someone was humming an old Weird Sisters song while cooking in the house behind him and tantalizing scents were wafting out onto the porch. In the distance, a dog howled. Just as Teddy had decided to see what it was that smelled so delicious, a peal of laughter broke out from the trees causing him to pause.

He didn't see anyone in the trees, and it was unlikely anyone would be there anyway, as they lived in a relatively isolated part of the English countryside. He listened intently, but it seemed that even the birds had stopped singing and the forest had grown eerily quiet. The only noise that remained was the woman humming from the kitchen. Suddenly feeling uneasy, Teddy quickly began to gather his sheet music.

"Teddy," someone sing-songed from the trees, followed by another shout of laughter and the sound of crashing waves. Teddy froze on the porch, the hair on his neck standing on end. He thought he must be going mad, because the only nearby body of water was the little pond they had on the edge of the property. He listened once more, and as the last rays of sunlight left the clearing, there was more laughter from the trees, except that this time the laughter ended in a terrified scream. The papers slipped from his hands as he recognized the voice.

"Victoire!" He shouted as he took off running towards the trees.

"Teddy!" A different female voice shouted from behind him as he heard the front door slam shut. "Wait, no…come back!"

"It's ok, Mum," he shouted back over his shoulder, catching a flash of pink hair from the corner of his eye, "I'll be back in time for dinner."

"Teddy, NO!"

It seemed that he reached the woods far too quickly. Up close, the trees seemed stretched and distorted, growing together thicker than they had looked from the porch. Everything was so still and quiet that it didn't feel real. Something was very wrong. He spun around, thinking he might head back towards the house, but there was only fog. With fog behind him and an endless forest before him, Teddy felt trapped and unsure of what to do. A twig cracked nearby.

"Vic?"

There was the crunch of leaf litter and the soft padding of feet, and out from the shadows of the trees stalked a gigantic wolf. Teddy took a step back from the intimidating beast, but it merely sat down and cocked its head to the side as if considering him. Teddy felt his fear dissipate, like he was in the company of an old friend. He moved forward to try and touch the wolf when it gave a tremendous howl. Teddy jumped backwards in fright and surprise. The air became thick and still with tension.

Pain suddenly erupted all over Teddy's body; it was far more severe than any of his morphs or the ankle he broke when he was seven. Shaking violently, he dropped to the ground. He felt as though he had been tossed into a fire while his bones rearranged and truncated themselves. There was an intense itching, and Teddy looked on in horror as fur replaced his flesh…

"You're listening to WWN. I'm DJ Derek, and that was the latest by _The_ _Jazz Magic_, "Babbity Rabbity Pulls a Fast One.""

Teddy sat bolt upright in his bed, his father's journal slipping off his chest and tumbling onto the bedspread. Breathing heavily, he clutched at his body making sure there was no fur and all his limbs were shaped correctly.

"And if you're planning on Flooing into work today, you may want to reconsider. The Floo Network is reporting fifteen minute delays on all fireplaces in the Diagon Alley area…"

Teddy wiped the sweat from his brow as the DJ droned on about a contest they were holding for tickets to the sold-out _Wendelin_ concert at the end of July. He picked up his father's journal and glanced at the entry he'd been reading before he fell asleep.

_July 13__th__, 1977_

_Last night was my first transformation alone in ten months. It was horrible to be locked up again when Moony had gotten so used to "running with a pack" as Sirius says…_

Teddy sighed and snapped the book shut, setting it on his bedside table. With a groan, he flopped back down onto his bed, hoping to get another fifteen minutes of sleep in before work. As the radio started to play_ Wendelin's_ newest hit, Teddy reached one hand up and blindly smacked the snooze button on his enchanted alarm clock.

Forty-five minutes later, the dream was all but forgotten. Teddy was showered, dressed, and bounding down the stairs in search for sustenance, whistling as he went. He took the last two steps at a jump, landing with a reverberating thud on the hardwood floors. He tapped out a few notes on the piano as he passed it on his way to the kitchen where he met his grandmother, who was already dressed for work and pouring herself a cup of tea.

"Good morning," he said, officially announcing his presence as he strolled in with the ease of lifelong familiarity.

Andromeda gave her grandson a smile that clearly suggested she thought there wasn't another teenage boy on Earth who could manage to make so much noise in such a small expanse of time. "Good morning, dear."

Teddy grabbed his favorite box of cereal from the cupboard and headed towards the icebox for the milk only to be circumvented by his grandmother, who handed it to him as he passed. Leaning against the counter, he pulled a handful of cereal from the box and stuffed into his mouth. He was just about to follow it with a swig of milk when a very stern "No" sounded throughout the kitchen. Teddy, cheeks puffy with food, gave a guilty start and looked at his grandmother. Andromeda stared back at him, looking very proper as she sat at the kitchen table, napkin in lap, eating her buttered crumpet and tea. With a roll of the eyes, he reached into the cupboard behind him for a bowl and set about eating breakfast like a "decent human being". As he sat at the table, his grandmother set a fresh cup of tea before him as well as the spoon he forgot to grab.

"Judith's sick, so I'm taking her shift," Andromeda said, setting herself down across from her grandson again. "I probably won't be home until about nine."

Teddy looked at his grandmother, not failing to notice the bags beneath her eyes and the thick hair that was mostly grey now. She was still a handsome woman despite the losses she had suffered, and had retained the fine features of the infamous Black family into her late sixties. Still, Teddy couldn't believe a woman her age was taking a double shift at the apothecary's located in St. Mungos Hospital, when she ought to be thinking about retiring and relaxing like her and Grandpa Ted has planned. In fact, before his grandfather had been killed during the War, Andromeda hadn't worked as an Apothecary or anything else since Teddy's mum had been born. The Tonks's had had a comfortable life living off Ted's salary as the Owlery Manager of the Diagon Alley Post Office, and Andromeda got to stay home with her beloved daughter. Teddy couldn't help but feeling a little guilty, knowing that he was the reason his grandmother still had to work. He would never forget being four-years old and waking up to the sound of sobbing. He remembered slipping quietly out of his bed and peering through the semi-open door at his grandmother crying on stairs, her bare feet blistered, two crumpled pieces of parchment in her hand. That was back when Andromeda had to work two jobs to make ends meet, but Harry had fixed that.

"I was hoping to get to the market today," Andromeda was saying as she finished her tea pulling Teddy out of his thoughts, "but would you mind picking up some things on your way home from work?"

"Not at all," Teddy said with a bright smile as his grandmother set a list of groceries on the table along with some gold she pulled from her purse. He noticed that his favorite cereal, something Andromeda would never eat, was at the top of the list. He stared thoughtfully at the little pile of galleons and sickles slowly chewing his food while Andromeda stood to wash her dishes.

* * *

The sun shone brightly down on Teddy as he crouched low in the grass, examining a ladybug that was crawling across a stick. Victoire, always eager to imitate her favorite playmate, crouched so close beside him that their noses nearly touched. The sky was a perfect shade of light blue, and the good weather set the field near the Burrow in pastoral beauty, like a scene from an Impressionist painting. Neither Victoire nor Teddy was old enough to appreciate the picturesque quality of the day; all they really cared about was that it had finally stopped raining and they were allowed to play outside.

"Victoire," Fleur called, her voice carrying softly over the light breeze. Victoire stood up, the trance the ladybug had put upon her broken by her mother's summons. Teddy stood too, trailing behind his little friend, who was toddling back to her mother as fast as she could go.

As Teddy trundled out of the grass, Victoire was showing Fleur, Ginny, and Molly Sr. the shiny pebble and flower he had given her. "Teddy likes me best."

Fleur smiled up at her cherubic daughter, adjusting a sleeping Dominique in her arms, while Ginny looked on amused as she helped Victoire's grandmother finish setting out the picnic lunch she had packed.

"Do you have presents for the rest of us, or is Victoire special?" Ginny asked her godson playfully.

"Everyone's got something," he answered annoyed, not liking to be teased about his affection for Victoire. And with that, he tuned out his pockets to distribute the treasures he had collected on his adventure with Victoire. To Ginny, he gave a smooth, black pebble with an orange stripe in it, Molly got a emerald green Muggle bottle cap, and both Fleur and baby Dominique got a flower. Teddy still had three flowers left when he sat down on the blanket to eat his lunch.

"Who are those for, Teddy?" Ginny asked.

"Grandmum," the little boy answered, his mouth full of sandwich, "she was sad last night, so she gets extra."

Ginny smiled down at him sympathetically; Teddy knew that all the grown-ups were still sad sometimes about the War four years ago. However, his mind was on the papers stuffed in his pockets, the ones he made sure not to take out when he gave away his presents. Feeling guilty, he grew quiet. He picked at his sandwich, pulled at a tuft of grass, squirmed in his seat, and bit his lower lip. Finally, guilt overwhelmed him. Teddy pulled the papers out of his pockets and confessed his crime to his godmother, "I know I shouldn't have taken them, but they were making her cry!"

Ginny, who had been taking in the scenery, looked perplexed by this outburst, but she took the two pieces of parchment he held out to her. The first was a bill for an overdue mortgage payment, and the second was a notice from the grocer that he would no longer be extending credit to Andromeda until her balance had been paid.

"Your right," Ginny breathed, "you shouldn't have taken them; your Grandmother is going to be so worried when she can't find these." Teddy's face blanched; he hadn't wanted to cause his grandmother more anxiety. "It's ok, Teddy, we'll fix it."

As if on cue, there was a round of cheers from Molly and Fleur as Harry strolled into view, Auror robes slung over his arm, brandishing the forgotten jug of pumpkin juice. Ginny showed Harry the letters, and the rest of the afternoon seemed to rush past Teddy in a blur of hushed conversations and adult errands. All too soon it seemed, he was being delivered to his front porch in Harry's arms.

"Harry!" Andromeda said, sounding harassed, as she opened the door. "I wasn't expecting you for another two hours." She vainly attempted to smooth her usually neat hair.

"er…yeah…sorry about that, can I come in?"

Andromeda stepped back from the door to let him pass as Teddy cried, "Grandmum, I got you these!" He handed over the bouquet, a little wilted now from its eventful day. Andromeda took them with a smile.

Harry set Teddy down and strode without invitation into the sitting room. Andromeda followed, looking simultaneously embarrassed about the disarray the house was in and confused by Harry's behavior.

"Looking for something?" He asked casually, indicating the room.

"Yes?" Andromeda asked suspiciously, gracefully lowering herself onto the sofa. She indicated that Harry should take the armchair across from her, but he chose to remain standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, like a boy about to be reprimanded. Stepping forward, Harry pulled the stolen letters out of his pocket and handed them over.

"Teddy had them." Upon hearing this, the little criminal buried his head in the arm of the sofa his grandmother was sitting on.

"Theodore Remus Lupin…" Andromeda breathed in shock and dismay.

"It's ok, though, right? I mean you got them back?" Harry interjected quickly, obviously hating having to rat out Teddy. "And I was also wondering if you could sign this?"

Andromeda looked truly confused now as she took the document that Harry held out for her. As she read, the worried wrinkles that had formed between her eyes relaxed and her pursed mouth grew slack—she was in shock. Harry decided to take advantage of her silence and press on. "I want to transfer the remainder of Sirius's inheritance from Alphard into your account."

Andromeda glanced up from the parchment at that sound of his voice, only to gape like a fish out of water before lowering her eyes back down to the paper.

"I mean, he was your uncle, too." Harry said, vainly attempting to fill the awkward silence.

"I can't accept this."

Harry smiled as if he'd been expecting her to say that. "Listen, I don't need it; Gin and I make plenty without having to dip into my inheritance. Besides, I know Sirius would've loved to help Remus's kid, especially since its his favorite cousin's grandson. And I know that you and Ted had to use most of your savings after the Muggleborn Registration act cost him his job, and that your savings were completely gone by the time…everything…was over and with Teddy too little to be left. It's understandable that your struggling now; just let me help."

"You help plenty, Harry. You take Teddy all the time—"

"Yeah, but he doesn't need toy broomsticks and Quidditch jerseys," Harry interrupted, "he needs his grandmother. He hardly ever gets to see you. Think about it; you'd only have to work one job or even just part-time."

Teddy had remained extraordinarily quiet for a four-year old throughout the conversation. He took in all the words, but understood little. At Harry's last statement, however, the boy crawled across the couch and into Andromeda's lap, resting his hands on her shoulders. She looked down at him in surprise, an adoring smile playing over her face. She stroked his turquoise hair out of his face with a loving hand.

"And he is going to need to start lessons soon, too. Look at how big he's getting." Teddy straightened up, proud that Harry considered him a 'big boy'.

Andromeda finally tore her eyes away from her grandson to look at Harry. It seemed as though she was debating whether to hex him or hug him. Teddy's godfather stood in the middle of the room, looking frightened by fruition of either possibility.

"Fine," she sighed, anti-climatically, "I'll sign for the transfer."

Harry smiled triumphantly.

* * *

"This came today," Andromeda said, calling Teddy back from his thoughts again.

"Sorry?" Teddy asked.

"This," Andromeda repeated and with a plop a large, thick envelope landed in front of him, "it took two owls to carry it." She smiled down at him with something caught between pride and sorrow, as though she was recalling a day many years ago when a similar package had arrived at the house.

Teddy examined the outside of the envelope, focusing on the part that informed him that it came from the Ministry of Magic, Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was the application for Auror training he had sent away for earlier that year. Teddy suddenly felt intimidated; knowing that inside was the key to a future he had worked so hard to obtain. He knew he needed three recommendations, two personal essays, a passing physical exam by a Healer from St. Mungos, a complete psychological questionnaire, not to mention a clean criminal record and N.E.W.T. qualifications in Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Herbology. It was a very competitive program, and, despite knowing that he was well on his way to fulfilling all the requirements to apply, Teddy had to admit that the application's presence scared him a little. It was summer; he didn't really want to have to think about it right now. With that thought, Teddy flipped the envelope over so that he only saw the inconspicuous, cream-colored back.

"Merlin, look at the time," Andromeda said, suddenly flying around gathering the things she would need for work. Before she left the kitchen, however, she stopped by Teddy. "Look at you, almost a man, and I still see a turquoise haired baby staring at me from the crib."

Teddy shot his grandmother an embarrassed grimace at her sentimental outburst. Andromeda laughed at his expression, kissed the top of his head and ruffled his hair before leaving. He finished his tea slowly, trying hard not to think about the application and the expectations people from Kingsley Shacklebolt on down to little Lily Potter had for him. He stood, brought his dirty dishes to the sink, and prepared himself mentally for another day in the wonderful land of retail. With the grocery list tucked safely into the pocket of his robes, Teddy headed out for work. The money his grandmother had left remained on the table.

Teddy was humming to himself later that day as he stocked books at Flourish and Blotts when he heard the bell above the door chime, followed by Victoire Weasley's delighted squeal as she spotted him. "Teddy!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

Teddy barely had time to register her arrival before he found that all the books he had been holding were on the floor and Victoire was clasping firmly on to his upper arms as she jumped up and down, babbling incoherently about a concert.

"Vic," Teddy admonished, extracting himself from her grip, "what are you doing here? Why aren't you at George's shop?" He surveyed the store carefully as he crouched to pick up the books, making sure his supervisors weren't lurking nearby. They were very strict, and Teddy had already had a stern talking to this week for being three minutes late back to work after lunch. He had eaten with Victoire that day and lost track of time joking with her as they meandered back to work. So, while his bosses were unsatisfactory, Teddy's summer was brightened by the fact that Vic appeared to have returned her normal energetic, slightly giddy self.

Victoire had crouched down, too, and began handing him books as she continued to speak in the same excited tone; "I won tickets to the _Wendelin_ concert today!" She pulled two tickets out of the sleeve of her maroon joke shop robes and waved them in Teddy's face.

"That's awesome, Vic!" Teddy said as he crawled down the aisle after a children's book shaped like a Pygmy Puff that had rolled away. He didn't notice Vic crawl after him, and jumped in surprise when he turned around, after extracting the book from under a nearby shelf, to find the pretty blonde kneeling directly in front of him. Her blue eyes were wide and shiny, which combined with her pale skin and the constellation of light freckles across her nose gave an impression of angelic innocence. She wore a slight, timid smile. And Teddy just knew that whenever Victoire made that face that she was about to ask him to do something he wouldn't want to do.

"What?" he asked, eloquently vocalizing his suspicions.

"I talked to Mum and Dad about it, and they were worried I'm too young to go to a concert in London—it's not like I work in London, or anything—"

"At your Uncle's store." Teddy felt it fair to point out.

She waved away his comment with her hand and continued to speak as though he hadn't. "Anyway, it sounded like they weren't going to let me go, so I told them that you were coming with me," she finished, anxiously biting her lip.

"You told them I was coming without even asking me first?"

Victoire shot him a pleading look. "They weren't going to let me go!" She whined, tugging on the sleeve of his robes. "Please, Teddy."

Teddy grimaced and stood up, Victoire mirroring him. He was not a big fan of the all witch rock group, _Wendelin_; he admitted their songs were catchy but they only ever wrote one verse a song and repeated it continually. "You know how I feel about _Wendelin_, Vic; besides, I have a reputation to uphold."

Victoire rolled her eyes. "Stop being such a music snob, Teddy Lupin, or I'll tell everyone at school about how you used to sing along to Celestina Warbeck at Grandmum Molly's Christmas parties. What's with the hair anyway?"

Victoire had changed subjects so quickly, that Teddy was confused for a moment before he realized she was asking him about his uncharacteristically dull appearance. He self-consciously ran a hand through his sandy brown hair, the "natural" hair color he had inherited from his father. "My employers didn't think turquoise was very professional."

Vic smiled sympathetically, but continued to stare at him, pouting slightly. And who could say no to that face? "Fine," Teddy relented, "I'll go with you, but I resent being treated like a chaperone." He shot her his most serious face, which only caused Victoire to laugh as she hopped into his arms to kiss him on both cheeks, causing the books to tumble to the floor again. He felt heat spread to the place where she had kissed him, and took in the smell of the ocean and, faintly, gunpowder as her long blonde hair swept over him. This prompted him to think that he wasn't completely immune to her Veela charms after all.

"You're very French sometimes", he chuckled as she pulled back from him, though she continued to linger in his arms.

"But, of course. I am quite charming, no? My mother would be very proud." Victoire said in rapid French, finishing with a cheeky grin.

Teddy, who's spoken French had been declared hopeless by Fleur, merely rolled his eyes. "Charming," he agreed. Somewhere a browsing customer cleared their throat, causing the duo to break apart abruptly. Teddy bent down to pick up the fallen books for the second time that day.

"Well, anyway," Vic said, hastily changing the subject as though fearing he would change his mind if he dwelt upon the concert too long," I know that you're giving Fred and Roxy their guitar lessons tonight, but do you want to hang out tomorrow night?"

Teddy shook his head, "Can't; Kingsley's niece wants to take up the piano."

A woman twisted her head around towards where Teddy and Victoire stood, as though shocked that a teenager just referred to the former Minister of Magic by his first name. Victoire was oblivious as she was too busy giving Teddy a death glare fierce enough that it prompted him to yelp, "It's one of the few lessons I get paid to teach!"

It was true; Teddy refused to accept payment from the Weasleys or the Potters for the music lessons he gave the children. That didn't stop them from trying however, and once George even had a small change purse full of gold chase Teddy around like a Bludger until he accepted it. Teddy had spent every Knut of it at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, figuring that was the only way George was going to let him give it back. The recommendation of Teddy as a music teacher by the large family to their well-connected friends was payment enough, and business was booming.

"Fine," Victoire finally sighed, relinquishing Teddy from her death stare, "but you work too much, you know that?" she teased.

"Yes, well, we can't all have rich Uncles to overpay us to sell magic tricks"

"Uncle George would overpay you, too, if you worked there." Vic replied. Teddy shrugged, dismissing her comment. Even if what she said was true, Teddy wasn't keen on the idea of taking handouts from family friends.

"Next year is my last year at Hogwarts, Vic. I've got to save up some gold for when I have to go face the big, bad world," Teddy explained, "besides, I like teaching."

"Which is why," she responded loudly, poking him in the chest, "you've got to spend all the time you can with your utterly adorable best friend before your off to adulthood. So what are you doing Friday?"

Teddy felt sheepish as he responded, and could feel himself blushing. He cleared his throat. "It's the book release party for Hermione's new translation of the _Tales of Beedle the Bard_, and they needed a piano player—"

Victoire looked disturbed. "Really?"

Teddy smiled apologetically. Her shoulders sagged with disappointment. "Couldn't they just enchant a piano to play itself?"

"Apparently even wizards find that creepy."

Victoire smiled for a second before frowning again. "Saturday?" she asked meekly, staring up at him from underneath her eyelashes.

"Well, its Lily's piano lesson in the morning and then—" Teddy found himself cut off again as Victoire pushed two fingers to his lips to silence him. Much to his mortification, Teddy found himself enjoying the sensation of her touch. It was reminder of the feelings he was desperately trying to ignore.

"Then," she said slowly, deliberately," we're hanging out." She nodded forcefully and removed her fingers as she stepped back from him. Teddy instantly missed her proximity, a feeling that caused him to blush even more furiously. His voice oddly absent, he nodded back to her in agreement.

Victoire beamed at him, said goodbye, and headed out of the bookstore, the door jingling as she pushed it open. Teddy heaved a sigh and continued stocking books, pausing to rub the place on his cheek where Victoire had kissed him.

**A/N: So, I rewrote chapter 4 since the other version was short and this one establishes many more relationships and sets up important plot points. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it; I plan on having chapter five up soon. Thanks for reading.**


	5. Our Wet, Awkward English Summer

"**Something slow has started in me, as shameless as an ocean and mirrored in devotion. Something slow has sparked up in me, as a dog cries for a master and sparks are swirling faster. "**

**- Love Dog by TV on the Radio**

"I thought you passed your exam with flying colors. I thought the examiners said it had been years since they encountered anyone who took so naturally to the Apparition process," Victoire teased as she trudged up the grassy slope towards Shell Cottage, pulling Teddy by the hand behind her.

"Your point being?" Teddy asked grumpily, knowing exactly where this was going. He stopped walking abruptly causing Victoire to pull up comically.

She spun around to face him. Her hair spilled out from the hood of the sweatshirt she had borrowed from him. Teddy had warned her that she would be cold if she insisted on wearing that ridiculously skimpy excuse for clothing, known as the tube top, to the concert.

"It's summer," Victoire had said, dismissing his comment as she stowed the cardigan she had used to hide her outfit from her father in a nearby tree. Teddy and her had used the small hole in the wood to hide "treasure" they found on the beach when they were kids.

"It's England," he replied. It was also the rainiest summer on record for over a decade. Victoire had given him her don't-worry-so-much look, and Teddy had dropped the subject. Now, he felt just touch bit smug to see Victoire engulfed in his Puddlemore United hoodie.

Victoire's laughter broke through the disapproval she was trying to feign.

"Then tell me, young man, how we managed to Apparate a full mile away from my house?"

"Only if you can tell me who was poking me in my side upon departure?"

"I haven't the slightest," Victoire shrugged with a wide, mischievous smile. Teddy looked down at her and smiled back, unable to resist her infectious happiness. He was struck by how close she was standing and how easy it would be to swoop down and kiss her. He was embarrassed by how much he wanted to do just that and by how tempted he was to run his hands through the silky hair that spilled out of the front of her hood.

An uneasy silence fell between the pair. It had been years since one had occurred, but since the train home they seemed to be happening with alarming frequency. Or, at least they were on Teddy's part. As these tense moments were usually preceded by thoughts like _Vic looks beautiful in the moonlight_, Victoire might still have viewed them as the same comfortable silences they had always shared.

At any rate, Teddy's new feelings persisted in cropping up at the most inconvenient times despite his efforts to dismiss them, leaving him desperate and praying for Victoire or an outside force to do something to cut the awkwardness before he broke down and did something brash.

"What time is it?"

Teddy heaved an inward sigh of relief as Victoire grabbed wrist in a most unromantic way to peer at the watch his grandmother had given him for his seventeenth birthday. Rough as her action was, it still sent a shiver down his spine.

"_Merde_," Victoire spat upon deciphering the time, "Daddy's going to kill you if I'm not home in ten minutes."

"Me?"

"You're my chaperone," Vic said, returning to her former teasing tone.

"Well," Teddy responded, sucking in air dramatically, "seeing as how I don't want to die…" Teddy burst into a full sprint, pulling Victoire's hood over her eyes as he passed.

"Te-ed-dy!" He heard her cry from behind him as he raced up the hill.

"Last one there is a Blast-Ended Skrewt," he called childishly over his shoulder with a laugh.

Teddy reached the front door and was just about to knock when Victoire, who would've made a fantastic Muggle track star, leapt onto his back. Teddy lost his balance and was pushed forward, his head colliding painfully with the wooden door. He swayed, stumbling backwards, and remained upright for a moment before collapsing in a heap on the ground with Victoire still perched on his back.

"You're supposed to stay standing!" She squealed in between giggles, playfully punching his arm. Teddy rubbed his aching head with the heel of his hand.

"Ow."

"Oh, oh, Ted," Victoire sympathized, scooting around to face him and gingerly touching the rapidly forming welt. Unable to control herself, she burst into laughter again.

They sat on the ground together, intertwined like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One of Victoire's slender, denim-encased legs was draped over Teddy's outstretched limbs while her other leg was behind him, supporting his lower back. She was alternately clutching her side and pushing lightly on his shoulders; she had reached the point where she no longer made noise when she laughed. Vic's hysterics did nothing for Teddy's pain, and he continued to stare sourly at his best friend until she brought her hand up to smooth the hair back from his forehead. On the outside, Teddy became very still, but his heart raced uncontrollably and heat rose to his cheeks at such an uncharacteristically gentle and feminine touch from Victoire. She placed a hand on either side of his head, just above his temples. She straightened up and leaned forward until they were mere centimeters apart. She kissed him once, sweetly, on the forehead. Victoire pulled back, but kept her hands in place. Teddy opened his eyes, despite having been unaware of closing them. His chocolate colored orbs locked onto Victoire's laughing blue eyes. His breath hitched. His heart felt near to bursting, and, for a moment, it seemed that the whole world was made up of Victoire—her eyes, the soft pressure of her hands in his hair, the heat that radiated from her body—and the distant sound of the crashing waves. The moment was so intense that Teddy felt sure he had reached a juncture, sure that something was about to happen; that they'd kiss or that he'd give up denying his feelings and confess to both Victoire and himself that he was mad about her. But before he could swallow the lump that had lodged in his throat, Victoire spoke.

"Now you know what happens when you try to sabotage a Weasley in a foot race." She flashed him a wicked grin and removed her hands.

The moment passed, the juncture was demoted to an instance. Teddy snorted through his nose and began to laugh as Victoire did too.

Not two seconds had passed before the front door was pulled open, bathing the duo in light from the house. Teddy looked up and found the formidable outline of Bill Weasley staring down at him.

"Hey, Bill."

"Hi, Ted. My daughter injure you again?"

"Something like that."

Victoire rolled her eyes. "Teddy decided to knock with his head."

"Meaning…?"

"As revenge for beating—"

"Cheating," Victoire corrected. Bill smirked.

"—for, uh, arriving at the front door first, _your_ daughter launched herself onto _my_ back. I lost my balance and hit my head."

"Teddy," Bill laughed, "Don't you know that you're supposed to remain standing?"

"I told him that, Daddy," Victoire said brattily as she extracted herself from Ted and stood to go into the house. Bill gave Teddy a hand up. They followed Victoire as she bounded off towards the kitchen, dancing to a music neither one of them could hear.

"You didn't let her have anything to drink, did you?" Bill inquired, observing the antics of his eldest daughter.

"She had a Muggle soda during the concert," Teddy replied, recalling a sweaty and breathless Victoire declaring herself to be dehydrated. A dutiful Teddy had trapsed off towards the bar to stare helplessly at the chalk menu.

"_Do you have anything non-alcoholic?"_

_The bartender, a tall, painfully thin wizard with lanky, mouse colored hair and tattoos covering his arms, blinked at Teddy. Apparently, that was the most absurd question anyone had ever asked him. _

"_Her dad made me promise," Teddy stated, thoroughly annoyed. He was quite certain that the bartender knew exactly who the "her" was in that sentence as most of the room had been staring at Victoire the entire night. In fact, the longer Teddy stood here engaged in a staring contest with the lanky wizard, the more nervous he became that Victoire would be overcome by male suitors. He was beginning to understand Bill's anxiety. _

_The bartender reached under the counter and pulled out a metallic, red can. "We have this to mix with the firewhiskey," he said, his bored facial expression never changing. "It's a Muggle import."_

"_Fine," Teddy said, "how much?"_

_The bartender blinked at Teddy again, and he felt his patience draining. "I only know how much it costs with the firewhiskey."_

_Now it was Teddy's turn to gape at the wizard. "Fine," he repeated, feeling like a broken record, "why don't you give me the firewhiskey and pour that into a separate glass for my friend."_

"_Eight sickles."_

_Teddy handed over the silver, and picked up his drinks. He tossed back the double shot of alcohol the bartender had poured, and tried not to cough as it scorched a trail of fire down his throat before he took the soda to Victoire._

"You realize that stuff's just caffeine and sugar," Bill reprimanded casually, as though Victoire was five, not fifteen.

"Yeah," Teddy said slowly, watching Victoire twirl around before leaping gracefully onto the countertop. That explained why she had begun poking him in the side and all of her super-affectionate gestures since.

Victoire grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter and took a bite out of it. "Hungry?" she asked.

"Starving," Teddy answered, hopping up onto the counter next to her. She handed him the apple she had bitten into, and picked a new apple from the bowl for herself. Teddy munched on his own fruit, unperturbed that it was half-eaten.

"You two going to be up for awhile then?" Bill asked. Teddy observed the way Victoire was swinging her legs against the counter.

"Probably."

"Yeah," Victoire slurred, mouth full of apple.

"Just keep it down; you know how your sister gets when she's woken up."

It was a well-known fact that waking a sleeping Dominique was akin to trying to steal a golden egg from a nesting Hungarian Horntail, or, at least, that's how Harry had described it. The tactics for survival were similar too—run, fly, and always make sure to avoid the fiery breaths, also known as "morning breath", and the spikes, i.e Dominiques perfectly manicured nails. It was testament to how fearsome of an event it was that Victoire stopped banging her legs against the counter immediately.

"There are leftovers in the fridge if you're still hungry," Bill said as he left the kitchen, no doubt noticing the decimated fruit bowl. "Goodnight, behave," he added with a smirk. The two teenagers sat very still as they listened to the creaking of the stairs.

"Leftovers," Teddy stated once they heard the click of the bedroom door.

"Leftovers," Victoire agreed. She hopped off the counter and crossed to the enchanted refrigerator, an idea adopted from the Muggles and a more modern version of Andromeda's icebox. Victoire bent over to rummage through the fridge, bringing her hand up to brush the long hair from her face only to have it fall forward again and obstruct her view.

"Stupid hair," she mumbled. It wasn't a statement that required a response, so Teddy didn't feel compelled to make one, settling instead on grunting in non-commital agreement. As it was, he was too busy enjoying the vista she presented him with. He stared, shamelessly enraptured by her figure, just like all the other men had been that night.

* * *

_Asphodel's Plain_ was proof to Teddy that with a little creativity and planning, you could hide almost anything from Muggles. It was the Wizarding rock club to play—doubly so, as it was the only one in Great Britain that he could think of—and it was started by Heathcote Barbary and Merton Graves after the Weird Sisters retired. It was located, of all places, in a Muggle Tube station. That made getting there a highly coordinated event, as it would be odd if there were a sudden rush of young people into the subway station none of which actually got on a train. So each set of tickets came with specific instructions on how to arrive at the famed music hall. Teddy and Victoire had Apparated to a dark alley by a subway station two stops away from their destination. A train had just left the platform when they arrived, so Teddy stopped to listen to a subway saxophonist playing a melancholy jazz tune. He didn't notice Victoire wandering over to the edge of the platform to peer curiously at the under workings of the tracks until the next train arrived, coming in at top speed and blowing its horn. Victoire jumped back in fright and alarm, and Teddy grabbed her elbow to steady her.

"Is this the right one?" She asked him, looking hesitant to get on.

"Yep." And he steered her through the automatic doors and into a seat. The only other two occupants of their car were two teenaged Muggle girls who kept throwing surreptitious glances in Teddy's direction. Victoire, who seemed to be enjoying the train more now that she was on it, narrowed her eyes in their direction.

"What?" Teddy asked. He had been oblivious to the girls while reading the advertisements on the walls. He wondered how complicated non-magical life must be since Muggles apparently needed all that stuff.

"It's just rude." Victoire leaned in to him to whisper conspiratorially. She nodded her head in the direction of the girls.

Teddy turned to look at them, and the girls giggled and waved. He hesitantly waved back.

Victoire was giving him an incredulous stare when he turned back to her. "Its rude," she repeated, "to check out a bloke that's with another girl."

"But were not with each other…in that way," Teddy said, feeling a strange fluttering in his chest.

"Well, they don't know that, do they?" Victoire snapped, looking miffed. She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the metal floor of the train. She cheered, almost instantly, when the giggling girls got off at the next stop.

Teddy really didn't get Victoire's point until they arrived at_ Asphodel's_ and the gawking began. There was no doubt Victoire was gorgeous and her laughter infectious, but they had only just come down the slide that started at the Authorized Personnel Only door at the top and ended twenty feet below in the long, entrance way to the club when the bouncer was already attempting to give Victoire a hand-up with the slyest grin that Teddy had ever seen.

"She's all set, thanks," Teddy said, whisking Victoire down a hallway lined with band posters and flyers for concerts. She just smirked up at him with a see-what-I-mean look on her face.

After handing over their tickets, Teddy and Victoire found themselves in a cavernous room with a large stage at the front and a bar, with a few tables and chairs in the back. The middle was just open floor space, rapidly filling with people. Dust would fall from the ceiling every time a train passed above them. The duo headed towards the floor, only to be subjected to forty minutes of mopey love songs by a solo, acoustic act called _Broomside Disclosures_.

"And the Crup fell in love with a kneazle,

And he was a masochist, and she a sadist,

And you'd think it'd work, but it don't

Oooohhhh, it just hurt.

And this Crup can't take anymore

of this crappy, puppy Cruppy love."

Victoire giggled at the last line of the chorus, garnering several scandalized looks from a group of depressed looking witches in the corner. She turned to Teddy and said, "You play and sing better than this bloke, I don't know why you don't write music too, and save us from this shit."

Teddy smiled at the compliment, but feeling unable to take anything too seriously in the face of such angst, crooned into Victoire's ear, "And the dish ran away with the spoon, but the cow had already jumped over the mooooon."

Victoire snorted and tried to hide her smile from the grumpy witches. "A definite improvement."

Their attention was called back to the stage, when the singer reached the climax of the song and changed from the third person to the first with great emotion.

"And I, the Crup, fell in love with you, a kneazle…" He sang, breaking out into tears. The witches in the corner began to sob. Victoire rolled her eyes, and Teddy just looked on, horrified.

Finally, _Broomside Disclosures_ reached the end of his set and the happy, poppy _Wendelin_ came out onto the stage to cheers and screams. Victoire jumped up and down, and began to dance and sing along to all the songs. Occassionally, she'd tug on Teddy's hand trying to get him to dance, but he resisted. At first, he was just happy to see her enjoying herself even if he didn't care for the music, but eventually, he felt the need to stand close to Victoire like a sentinel, on the watch for all the male eyes straying towards her. A little ring had even begun to form around her as the wizards stopped moving to the music and openly stared. This was unusual, and Teddy figured it must have something to do with her sweat and happiness mixing with the Veela pheromones. The strapless top certainly didn't help matters; after all, Teddy realized with a jolt, he had been watching her too.

In between sets, Teddy pulled the Puddlemore United hoodie over his head and handed it to Victoire.

"No, I'm too warm already," she said, pushing it away.

"Please, just wear it," he begged. Vic looked up at him, obviously confused. "They are all staring."

Victoire looked around her for the first time and noticed all the wizards running their eyes over her. "I'll wear it if you dance with me."

Teddy grimaced as the lights came down and the next song started up. He took one more look at the gawking men and said, "Deal."

Victoire shoved the hoodie over her head, and grabbed Teddy's hand, pulling his hips close to hers like all the other couples. "They probably won't do anything if they think you're my boyfriend," she explained with a smile. Teddy smiled back, surprised he was able to muster that much of a response as being this close to Victoire was making his head spin.

* * *

"Deviled eggs!" Victoire exclaimed, pulling a plate from the back of refrigerator.

"Not the ones from the family dinner two weeks ago?"

Victoire sniffed the plate and scrunched up her noise. "Yeah, I think so," she replied as she shoved the plate back into the fridge, instead of throwing them out like Teddy had expected. He laughed, but cut himself off short. He turned his eyes upward, listening for signs of an approaching dragon.

"I think we might've won the Galleon draw." Victoire declared.

"Meat?" Teddy asked hopefully. If he had to pick a favorite food it would have to be anything that began its journey as a cow, though bacon followed for a close second. He figured it was an inherited trait from his father.

"Not just meat," Victoire echoed, turning around with a ceramic serving dish in her hands, "Pot roast." Her eyes fell onto to something to Teddy's left, and he looked down to see a French loaf sitting on the counter.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yes!"

"Sandwiches," they said in unison. The sandwich was the perfect late night food as it involved very little dish and service ware. At Hogwarts, the duo often snuck down to the kitchens—a task made easier by the Marauder's Map Harry had given him—for late-night sandwiches, courtesy of the House-Elves.

Victoire moved towards the oven to warm the roast.

"Wait," Teddy interjected dramatically, pulling out his wand. "Let me."

Two minutes later the beef was warmed, the bread was toasted, and the sandwiches were assembled.

"You know, you being seventeen is kind of awesome," Victoire said, in between mouthfuls.

They sauntered outside and over to their favorite tree. It had been their preferred spot since they had learned to climb trees, as it contained many branches perfect for footholds and sitting. Now that they were older, they mainly just sat on the springy ground, enjoying the shade after an afternoon on the beach and talking. With their backs to trunk, they had a stunning view of the moon reflecting off the ocean with the gentle, lapping sound of the water soothing their ringing ears. They sat for hours, finishing their food, recapping the evening, and laughing over inside jokes. They talked about everything and nothing; Victoire tried to teach Teddy a silly hand-clapping game, but his coordination failed him. Eventually, she gave up the attempt and stretched out on the ground, resting her head on Teddy's thigh.

"So," Victoire began, "Truth?"

"Truth?" Teddy repeated, confused.

"Did you or did you not actually have fun at the concert?"

"I did."

Victoire grinned, nodded, and said, " Ok, your turn."

"Huh?"

"Truth."

"Truth?"

"Ask me a question."

"OK, what was your favorite part of the concert?"

"No, it has to be something embarrassing," she corrected, pulling out strands of hair that the breeze had blown into her mouth. "Stupid hair," she grumbled.

"You asked me about the concert."

"That's because it was embarrassing for you to admit that you had fun, what with _your reputation_," Victoire explained, complete with air quotes.

"Fine," Teddy groaned, "who was your first kiss?"

Victoire snorted and whacked him on the arm. "You, remember?" She responded loudly. "Merlin, you're horrible at this game."

Teddy just sat there looking confused; sifting through memories like pages of an encyclopedia looking for an entry he had missed. "If you're talking about that time at George and Angelina's wedding when I was five, that doesn't count."

"I wasn't; I was talking about the time at the Quidditch match."

Silence.

"Oh," Teddy blurted, his eyes widening a little in surprise that he had forgotten. He supposed that he had suppressed the memory out of embarrassment; the adults' teasing had been endless. "That."

"Wow, now I feel kind of offended," Vic teased and with a yawn asked, "Truth?"

"Truth," Teddy responded wearily.

"Who do you fancy?"

Teddy felt stricken, like he had just seen a Grim. "What makes you think I fancy anybody?" He retorted, probably more defensively than the situation called for. Panic seized at his chest.

"Well, you've been acting funny lately, putting more effort into your appearance and stuff."

_So she had noticed_, Teddy thought.

"I thought it might be Kara." Victoire yawned again.

_Ah, yes, the ever-present Kara Adams debate. _

"She does spend an awful lot of time in Flourish and Blotts."

Kara Adams was an incorrigible bookworm in Teddy's year, who came into his work at least once a week to stock up on reading material. She was pretty, very smart, and very studious. Therefore, Teddy would often find himself alone with her working on the same assignment in opposite corners of the common room after everyone else had gone to bed. They talked, found that they got along pretty well, and, every once and while, would snog. They had discussed going out once, and had come to the conclusion that they were both too busy and dedicated to be bothered.

"This way," Kara had explained scientifically, pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose, "we can satisfy our teenage hormones and maintain an amicable acquaintance that doesn't interfere with our schoolwork or any other personal relationships."

Victoire wasn't pleased when Teddy told her about his arrangement with Kara. She thought it was strange, impossible even, for two people to come together and kiss repeatedly and not develop any emotional ties to one another. Teddy had teased her for being so romantic, and they had never spoken about it again. Though, now that he thought of it, Vic might have been just a little jealous. Not about the kissing part, but about the fact that Teddy stayed up late to talking to another girl after she'd gone to bed. After that, Victoire had also started to stay up late with Teddy, her eyes wandering over to where Kara sat scratching away every five minutes or so. Then she had gone out with Roger, and Teddy had gone back to snogging Kara Adams again.

Teddy felt that her suspicions about Kara were the reason Victoire had started this silly game in the first place. She expected him to like Kara, and then she could gush on and on about how she was right and plans for him to woo her. However, it wasn't studious, pretty, pragmatic Kara that he fancied; it was Victoire—beautiful, energetic, affectionate, easy-going, detention-getting Victoire. His best friend, whose hyperactivity usually resulted in his injury, who begged him to share the Double-Decker Chocolate Delight at Florean Fortescues with her, only to eat most of it herself, who had inadvertently stolen half of his jumpers because she never brought her own and always forgot to give them back, a girl he could never say no to—that girl, that was the one he was mad about. There didn't seem to be any use in denying it anymore, though he still doubted the wisdom in telling Victoire. But, she had asked for the truth.

"Vic..Victoire?" Teddy began, looking straight ahead at the ocean feeling that looking at her would rob him of his courage.

There was no response.

"Vic?" Teddy looked down at the blonde head resting in his lap. Victoire's breathing was soft and even and her eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep.

**A/N: So....what'd you think? Thanks for reading and please, review! And thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far. It's greatly appreciated.**


	6. Next Gen Mafia

"**Sounds of summer fill my ears, and, if I live ten thousand years, I'll never feel as good as this, moments before our first kiss. There is nothing to demand, no algebra to understand. Just sunlight on a freckled face…"**

**- Sunlight by Mason Jennings**

Quidditch players passed by in a blur of yellows, oranges, blues, and whites as the sun cast its warmth on the half-empty stands. While the low rumble of conversation and complaints remained, the cheering and chanting that had characterized the game early on had largely died away. The crowd had trickled away when it became apparent that the pre-season match between the Chudley Cannons and Puddlemore United was going to be a blow out, in favor of Puddlemore, of course.

Ginny had gotten a row of tickets from work and had brought her brothers, including a visiting Charlie, and the two eldest children as a treat. Teddy and Victoire had had great fun cheering against each other, as Teddy supported Puddlemore and Vic the Cannons. Once the fans began to leave and seats opened up, the duo hopped from row to row, clambering over the backs of seats looking for the best view, but always being careful to remain within the sight of the adults.

Teddy gave a half-hearted cheer when Puddlemore scored their seventeenth goal of the game, and turned to Victoire to make a snotty my-teams-better-than-yours face. Victoire scrunched her nose and stuck her tongue out at him. Teddy laughed because it was stained purple, as were her lips. Harry had bought each of them of popsicle. Teddy had gotten blue and Victoire red, and as each color was a drastically different flavor, each one of them had to try each other's.

"What?" Victoire asked, clearly miffed about being laughed at.

"You're all purple."

"So, are you!" She exclaimed. "And you've got blue all over your shirt."

Teddy looked down, it was true but he didn't care, and considering how Victoire made no effort to remove the popsicle stains from her face, she didn't either. In fact, Teddy thought she looked quite pretty with the sun shining on her hair and freckles all over her face from a summer's worth of playing outdoors. Her yellow Chudley Cannons t-shirt made her look like a walking daisy or ray of sunshine, and just when you thought she was an incurable tomboy in ripped denim, her braid would whip around to reveal a yellow ribbon tied into a bow at the end of it. A bow that Teddy couldn't help but tug on, so that it came undone and dangled shapeless from her hair. Victoire would roll her eyes, and tie it up again just to have Teddy pull it again. As Victoire wore a ribbon nearly every day, it had become Teddy's favorite pastime. He knew she found it endlessly annoying, and once he'd done it so many times in a day that Victoire had punched him in his stomach. She might look like a normal nine-year old girl, all sweet and demure, but she really packed a wallop.

"You're staring at me. Is it really that bad?" Victoire asked. Finally, she seemed a little self-conscious about her appearance, a rarity for her.

"Nothing," Teddy replied, and he pulled the yellow ribbon again.

"Stop that," she groaned, and she brought her plait around to once again retie the bow.

Teddy just smiled to himself and looked at his feet, which were resting on the back of the seat in front of him. It had just occurred to him that this would be the last day he'd get to spend with Victoire before he went off to Hogwarts. He was excited to be starting school, but he had to admit he'd really miss her. He thought he should say something to that affect, but was embarrassed. "I'm really going to miss you," isn't something one just blurts out.

"I'm really going to miss you, Teddy."

Apparently, he was wrong.

He looked at Victoire who was staring at him, but holding the end of her braid protectively against her chest.

"I'll miss you, too." He replied, trying his best to sound nonchalant.

Victoire nodded and said in a solemn voice, "Now, don't laugh, but I made you a present."

"Why would I laugh? Presents are awesome!"

Victoire rolled her eyes again and reached into the bag that she had carried around with her the entire day. The one that she had made Teddy carry at one point complaining that it was heavy, but made him promise not to look into. When he tried to sneak a look, Victoire had swatted his hand away, but still made him carry the bag. He wasn't as annoyed now that he knew it was a gift for him. He also wasn't surprised it was handmade; Victoire was always folding bits of parchment into different objects and shapes and cutting pictures out of magazines to paste into collages.

Teddy was called from his musings when a large book was placed in his lap. The cover was hand drawn in wax crayon, and the title read:

**Teddy and Victoire's Awesome Adventures**

He raised an eyebrow in surprise and opened up the cover to discover that Victoire had built him a scrapbook. The pages were filled with pictures and mementos that dated from when Teddy was about four to this summer, including pictures of the two of them playing pirates on the beach and one of him attempting to teach Victoire how to play the piano.

Victoire was babbling while Teddy investigated the book. "Mummy helped me get all the photographs, but I did the rest myself. Though Dom and Louis wanted to help draw some of the pictures; I didn't want to let them, but Mum made me. I was afraid they'd spoil the secret if they knew about it, but they were really good about not telling…"

Victoire trailed off when Teddy looked up from the book to gape at her.

"Do you like it? I hope you do."

She paused, obviously expecting he'd say something. But when he just continued to stare at her, she continued with her babbling.

You hate it, don't you? I know its kind of silly, but I just didn't want you to forget about me when your at Hogwarts with all the new friends your going to make—"

"I'm not going to forget about you."

"Well, you never know, you know? You'll be really busy with all your school work and feasts and Hagrid and exploring the Forbidden For—"

Victoire stopped talking. In fact, she went stock still when Teddy brusquely leaned forward and briefly pressed his lips against hers. He remained amazingly unembarrassed by his actions until he heard George and Ron whistling and teasing him from several rows up the bleachers. He swiveled around in his seat to look at the Weasley men applauding and laughing, while Harry and Ginny exchanged a parental look. Teddy turned several shades of red, and turned back to Victoire expecting her to be the same color of scarlet as he. He was surprised to find that she only had a small flush in her cheeks as she smiled at him with astounding grace and composure.

"So you like it then?" she asked.

Teddy didn't respond, except to reach forward and tug at the bow at the end of her braid.

* * *

As August flew by, Teddy came to think of Victoire's falling asleep before he told her his feelings as one of the more fortuitous events in his life. It wasn't that his feelings had changed as summer melted away, just that he considered it not worth risking a friendship for a simple, hormone-driven crush. He figured that time would either cause his feelings to fade, or that something would happen to bring them together. It was the second alternative that Teddy often fantasized about. Occasionally, this would occur in Victoire's presence, which, despite the high potential for awkwardness, was surprisingly not. Now that he had given up fighting with himself, the uncomfortable moments ceased, and he could be quietly infatuated with her and seem like he wasn't.

This, Teddy considered to be a good deal. As Victoire's best friend, he had privileges that a boyfriend would not. For instance, the night of the concert, Teddy had let Victoire sleep in his lap—dozing off occasionally himself—until the sky began to lighten from black to gray and the cold sent a shiver down Victoire's back. Then he had gently shook her awake, walked her to her front door, and they said goodnight. So maybe he didn't get to kiss her before he left, but Teddy doubted that Bill Weasley would've allowed his daughter to stay out all night with anyone else. It was a trade off. However, being her best friend was also similar to being neutral territory, like Switzerland—friendly, responsible, good cheese, nice clocks, and completely non-threatening. And people often treated Teddy as such. Some days he liked it, and other days he wished he were a little more like a country that had some danger to it, like Brazil or Canada. He had heard that moose were frighteningly violent.

"Do you have the list?" Victoire asked from the floor of the compartment they occupied.

"Yeah," he affirmed, setting aside the guitar he'd been strumming absentmindedly. He slipped a piece of parchment from the pages of his father's journal and handed it to Victoire. It was a list of all the songs he and Victoire had listened to most frequently over the summer and his yearly contribution to the scrapbook. Every year, Teddy would hand over the list and the book so Victoire could add more pages to the end of it. This year's mementos included concert tickets and a copy of Teddy's Hogwarts letter that informed him he'd been made Head Boy, whose badge was now pinned to front of his school robes as the scarlet steam engine wound its way through the English countryside.

Several weeks had passed since the night of the concert and several more since a PJ clad Victoire had flooed into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, clutching her own Hogwarts letter and shouting, "Tell me that you got it!"

"I got it!" Teddy had replied enthusiastically, holding up the badge and bracing himself for the impact. It was a necessary precaution, because in the next moment Teddy found himself in a hug so tight that it took his breath away.

It hadn't really surprised the family when Victoire didn't receive a Prefect's badge. Though, Teddy felt that it might have been somewhat of a disappointment that she hadn't since Bill had been Head Boy. She had certainly gotten her fair share of detentions, mostly for the possession and use of various Weasley products and sneaking about the Forbidden Forest looking for her grandfather's car. More than that, however, was that Victoire was decidedly unambitious. She always got all right marks, but everyone knew she could do better if she just applied herself more. The same was with Quidditch. In fact, the only ambition Victoire had ever revealed to Teddy was to travel the world, and to have the largest collection of scarves this side of the channel. Teddy didn't care if Victoire was a Prefect or not as long as she didn't, and her badge free robes certainly didn't seem to be bothering her any, though something definitely was.

Victoire's mood has been steadily declining since the arrival of their school letters, and she had admitted to Teddy that she was worried that the student body would still be talking about the ordeal with Roger. Teddy had reassured her that they probably would have found a new scandal to immerse themselves in and that she shouldn't let any gossip bug her. Still, Victoire seemed sad even as she concentrated on putting the scrapbook together; there was something almost desperate about the painstaking care she put into it, as though she was unwilling to let the summer go.

Teddy felt a small hand push on his ankle. "Could you move your feet; I'm running out of space," Victoire directed, rather than asked.

He put his feet up on the seat to give Victoire more room to work. He shifted around uncomfortably, feeling like he had entirely too much leg and not enough of the rest of him. He'd been shocked to find that he needed new robes again at the end of the summer, as the one's he'd gotten the year before were several inches too short and tight along his shoulders.

"Why'd you have to do this on the train?" He whined.

"Because," Victoire said as she enchanted a pair of scissors to cut dainty letters out of colored parchment, "it's a long trip, and it will come out better if I can use magic."

"And it has to be perfect," he teased.

"Yes," Victoire replied seriously, "it has to be perfect, because it's the last one before you start being an adult; then you won't want to do this anymore."

If Victoire had seemed melancholy before, her face now betrayed a misery, which Teddy finally realized stemmed from her fear that she'd miss him. It was an epiphany that created a little bubble of happiness inside his chest, despite feeling bad about Victoire's sadness.

"I'm really going to miss you, too, Vic," he replied, a sly smile on his face. Victoire paused in her crafty endeavors and looked up, grinning to herself. The next moment however, her features darkened into a scowl as she stared out of the window of their compartment door.

Teddy looked over to see a bunch of fourth year boys making lewd gestures on the other side, and he scowled as well. Preparing to stand, Teddy said, "I'll take care of that."

"No, just leave it," Victoire said, making a rude hand gesture herself as the boys gave up their game and walked away laughing. "They're too stupid to be bothered with."

Teddy shrugged and sunk back into his seat. "You're probably right; that's probably their demented way of telling you that they think you're fit."

Victoire shrugged and turned her attention back to the scrapbook. "As if," she grumbled under her breath. Teddy chuckled and reassured her once again that no one else would remember her breakup.

He wished he'd been right. But, Victoire received more taunting stares as the train made its way North, and a few Ravenclaw girls kept mouthing the word "slag" at her during the Welcome feast. With every lewd remark, rude comment, and gesture, Victoire grew more sullen until she fell silent altogether, walking up to the common room in a daze.

"Goodnight," she said listlessly as she walked away from Teddy towards the girl staircase. He stared after her in sympathy, angered by the student body's immaturity. His eyes caught Dominique's, concern etched on her face, from across the room. It was obvious they needed to do something. They exchanged one nod, and each took off toward their respective staircases to rouse the troops.

* * *

"So, who wants what?" Teddy asked the assembled Weasleys and James, who was beginning his first year with Lucy, Molly's sister. The family and Teddy had gathered in the common room to plan their vengeance on the population of Hogwarts.

"Why do we have to get detention again?" Freddie asked from his place in front of the fire.

"Because," Teddy explained for what felt like the hundredth time, "You're leaving big W's all over everything; the staff will figure out who pulled the prank. And if we choose now, at least you'll get the detention you find the least distasteful."

There was a collective mumbling and a few yawns. It was getting late, everyone was tired, and, if they were going to pull this off, they all needed to be up early.

"So…first up, polishing trophies?"

There was a deafening silence. No one wanted to polish trophies.

"I'll do it," Victoire piped up, "you're doing this for me, so I'll take this one."

Teddy smiled in approval as he continued to read off the list. "Next, the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid…"

Nearly everyone raised their hands, including James.

"I don't think the teachers will suspect that James and Lucy had anything to do with Operation Weazlebub since it's their first day, so you're out of the running kid."

"Awww," James groaned, looking severely disappointed.

"Don't look so down, Jaime-poo," Roxy mocked.

"Yeah, I'm sure you'll have plenty of other opportunities to get detention your first day," Freddie joined, ruffling James' already messy hair.

James scowled. He hated to be treated like the family baby.

"Right," Teddy interrupted, "I think Fred and Roxy had their hands up first, so they get that one." He jotted their names down on the list. "Moving right along, library duty?"

Louis, Dominique, and Molly's hands shot into the air. Not that any of them, other than Molly, were particularly fond of stocking books, but all three of them knew what was left if they didn't get the library gig.

"Ok…library duty goes to Molly and Dom. Sorry, Louis, you've got cleaning the potion's classroom."

Molly and Dominique high-fived, while Louis grumbled, "I don't see Ted giving himself detention," under his breath. Teddy ignored his comment, figuring that weaseling out of detention was a perk of being Head Boy.

After they had gone over the plan one more time, the Weasleys, Teddy, and James headed back to their respective dormitories to prepare for tomorrow's prank.

* * *

Teddy and James were the first to arrive in the Entrance Hall the next morning, though it wasn't long before Victoire came bouncing down the stairs.

"Did it turn out, ok?" Teddy asked she as she approached him.

She nodded and said, "Yeah, I gave it to Fred and Roxy a little while ago."

Molly and Louis, who had made an early morning visit to the Owlery, joined the trio shortly. Molly shook feathers out of her hair, and Louis gave Teddy thumbs up. Fred, Roxy, and Lucy came up from the kitchens next, smiling mischievously.

"Did the house-elves catch on to anything?" Teddy asked as Fred handed a napkin full of sausages stuffed with Puking Pastilles to James.

"Nah," Roxy replied, "We just told them that we were giving our cousin a tour."

"The kitchens were rather extraordinary," Lucy said quietly. Despite her timid nature, Percy's youngest daughter seemed to be enjoying the game quite a bit. She beamed around at them all.

Victoire frowned. "I still wish we could've a been a little more selective than just the whole Ravenclaw table."

"Well, those who've got it coming are getting a little extra," Teddy said sternly. He looked around at the group like a general surveying his troops.

Just then Dominique appeared at the top of the stairs, the last of the cousins to arrive.

"My gosh!" Victoire exclaimed, "is that one of Lucy's skirts?" Her face seemed caught between disapproval and amusement as she surveyed her little sister's ensemble.

"What!" Dom said defensively, "I've got to be a distraction, yeah?"

"Right." Teddy said, nodding curtly in greeting of the final soldier. "Ready for our entrance."

Victoire, Dominique, Molly, Freddy, Roxy, James, Louis and Lucy murmured their agreement.

"Ok then. Let's do this."

They grouped together and with a surreptitious wave of his wand, Teddy opened the doors to the Great Hall with enough force to make heads turn. He played out the beat of their collective footsteps in his head. To him, it sounded like the slow, steady beat of a rock song. Most people looked as the nine of them entered; there were a few raised eyebrows, several shrugs, and a giggle or two. Roger Davies II, Teddy was pleased to note, not only looked perplexed but also a little nervous, as though he recognized the dramatic entrance for what it was—a show of arms. They practically sat in unison as well, Victoire and Dominique never looking more like sisters than when they gave nearly identical tosses of their long hair. Everything seemed normal after the Weasleys, James, and Teddy began to pull platters of food toward themselves, and everyone else returned to their breakfasts.

Just as Teddy had finished buttering a slice of toast, Dominique let out a shriek of anger just as planned.

"That's mine!" She screeched at James, who had something clasped in his fist, "Give it back, you little brat!"

Teddy tried to remember to look surprised as Dominique lunged at James, who ducked and sprinted from the table. His cousin gave chase and James made a great show of ducking behind eating students as Dominique tried to aim her wand at him. In an attempt to wrestle the object away from James, Dominique sent the two of them crashing into the end of the Ravenclaw table where Roger sat with his friends, who Teddy recognized from the train, and a couple of adoring girls. Teddy thought it made life easier when all their main targets clumped together like that.

"Oh, sorry!" Teddy heard Dominique cry in a much gentler tone as she sent a platter of sausages flying off the table.

"I'll get those!" James volunteered and he ducked beneath the table to retrieve the lost food.

Dom turned her attention to Roger, whose plate she had 'accidentally' fallen on, while simultaneously spilling his goblet of pumpkin juice down the front of his shirt. She snatched a napkin out of the hand of another girl who was holding it out to Roger and began to dab at his chest. "Did I do that?" She cooed, leaning into him. Considering how many unbuttoned buttons Dom's shirt had this morning, Teddy expected that Roger was getting quite the show, especially if his suddenly relaxed posture was an indicator. "Oh, and all over your hair too!"

One of the girls next to Roger shot Dominique a look of utter contempt and downed her pumpkin juice. Teddy and Victoire exchanged a smirk. The other stabbed at her eggs so hard that they went flying; They saw a couple of second years duck a good three yards down the table. Roger's friends were so involved with trying to look up Dominique's skirt that they barely noticed when James came back up from under the table with the tray of sausages.

"Well, some of them may have been a little past the five second rule, but I dusted them off a bit!"

"Uh-huh. Move kid." One of the goons said as he pushed James out of his view of Dominique's thigh.

"Oh, nope. There are a few more down there." James said and disappeared again.

"Hey," Roger piped up in a dazed tone, "what's your name? I don't think we've met."

Dominique leaned in closer to Roger to whisper her name into his ear. She wrapped her hand, still clutching her wand, lovingly around the back of his head to stroke his hair. And if Teddy weren't looking for it, he wouldn't have been able to see the subtly movement she made with her wand.

"That's a really pretty name," Roger replied in the same dazed state, "Maybe we can hang out later on?" He brought his hand up and placed it on Dominique's knee.

She raised one eyebrow and chuckled seductively, "Actually, I think you're too old for me." She removed Roger's hand slowly as she continued in a harsh, sarcastic tone. "But maybe you'd like my sister, instead?"

Roger looked like he'd just fallen from a great height. "What?"

"You know, my sister, Victoire? You remember her, don't you?"

He just gaped at her, his jaw opening and closing like a fish out of water.

"Come on, James," Dominique ordered, "let's go."

James popped up from under the table as directed, saying, "turns out those weren't sausages," as they walked back to the Gryffindor table. The mail owls fluttered in through the windows at that moment, dropping several identical letters to students at the Ravenclaw table, and a few were addressed to Slytherins and even one Gryffindor girl that had made Victoire's life miserable.

Teddy knew the message each one of them bore, and he took great amusement in the smug looks that Louis and Molly wore.

"What goes around comes around…?" The Gryffindor girl read aloud, "Always, W?"

The confused babble of the students ended abruptly when hell broke loose at the Ravenclaw table.

"Roger, you ok, mate?" Someone called out because Mr. Davies had suddenly began scratching violently as angry, red hives broke out all over his arms, neck, and face.

"I think they spell something!"

"Yeah…L-I-A-R…liar?"

"I. Think. I'll. Go. To. The. Hospital. Wing." Roger replied. He stood up, took a step forward, and promptly fell on his face; James had tied his shoelaces together.

One of his friends paused in the middle of chewing their sausage, apparently concerned about Roger's health. Except that his face was tinged green, and then his cheeks bulged. He brought one hand up to cover his mouth, but to no avail; he spewed his breakfast all over the table. His mates tried to jump out of the line of fire only to find that, in a stroke of pranking brilliance, James had not only tied their shoelaces together but had also tied their shoes to each other. The boys toppled like dominoes, stumbling and falling all over each other, dragging their still vomiting friend with them.

Teddy high-fived James under the table.

One of Roger's fan girls had jumped up to help the still itchy Quidditch captain, but she was distracted when her friend gasped.

"Sarah!"

"What?" She snapped, obviously annoyed.

"You're old!"

What?"

"Look!"

Sarah held her hand out in front of her, and her eyes widened in shock as she surveyed the wrinkles there. Shaking and whimpering, she brought her hands up to feel her face which had become just as wrinkled as the rest of her, all thanks to the Age Potion Victoire had brewed up and Freddy and Roxy had spiked the Ravenclaw's pumpkin juice with. The former brunette Sarah let out a scream when she pulled a clump of stringy, white hair from her head. Abandoning Roger to his plight, she ran distraught from the Great Hall.

All along the table, other people were aging as well. Some more than others, depending on how much pumpkin juice they had drunk. Some Ravenclaws were laughing and tugging playfully at the grey beards they had sprouted, whereas others, who had drained their glasses like Sarah, appeared distressed by the appearance of liver spots and warts.

Freddie, Roxy, and James were laughing uncontrollably with their heads in their arms, while everyone else tried valiantly to control their laughter. But Teddy still had to perform his part of the prank. He held his wand beneath the Gryffindor table, and, concentrating very hard, thought the incantation he needed and waved his wand in the proper formation. The letters Louis and Molly had sent were suddenly transfigured into birds that let out a tremendous squawk and began chasing after the recipients. People brought their arms, books, and golden plates up over their heads to protect themselves as they were bombarded with gooey, white bird droppings. The Gryffindor girl didn't duck quickly enough to avoid getting a healthy dose on the side of her head that dripped down her hair and onto the shoulder. Looking ill, she shrieked and made for the door, the bird following her out of the hall.

That was it for Victoire, and, for the first time it what seemed like weeks, she burst out into raucous laughter, practically falling of her chair in a fit of hysterics. Teddy thought she had never looked prettier.

The madness died down as the staff leapt in to rescue most of the Ravenclaw table and a few others from the wrath of the Weasley cousins. Headmistress Sinistra made her way over to the Gryffindor table as Teddy began handing out the pre-made detention slips.

"Miss Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Miss Weasley, Miss Weasley, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Weasley," she said sternly, nodding her head at Victoire, Louis, Dominique, Molly, Freddie, and Roxy in turn. "I am assuming you had something to do with this?" She held one of the recently re-transfigured letters in her hand.

"I've got it all under control, " Teddy jumped in before any of the cousins could answer. "They are all getting detention." He indicated the slips they held.

"Oh," she said with a raised eyebrow, "and what about you, Mr. Lupin and Mr. Potter here?"

Teddy felt his smile falter just a little. He heard a snort of laughter, and looked around to see Fred and Roxy giggling silently, while James looked absolutely thrilled to be considered part of the troublemaking. "Sorry?"

"Well," the Headmistress elaborated, "I'm assuming it was Mr. Potter that tied Mr. Davies shoelaces together."

"Right. He'll get detention too." From the corner of his eye, he saw James pump his fist into the air.

"And," she continued, "that was a rather…er, impressive…bit of transfiguration, and I assume that it was your doing?"

_Talk about a double-edged compliment_, Teddy thought. He looked down at the last detention slip in his hand; it was for Louis. If Teddy had to choose a punishment for himself, he definitely would sign up to polish trophies with Victoire, but he remembered how put out Louis had been about the potion's classroom.

Making up his mind, he snapped his head up and looked the Headmistress directly in the eye as he spoke, "Since Victoire and Louis are polishing the trophies, and I reckon I'll be cleaning the potion's classroom with James."

"Without magic, Mr. Lupin," she nodded curtly in response, though she looked as though she was trying not to smile.

"Without magic." He agreed as she walked away.

Teddy imagined that somewhere up there, his dad and James Potter Sr. were laughing and clapping each other on the back in pride as they watched him get detention on his first day of being Head Boy. And he was serving it, no less, with the notorious prankster's grandson.

"Ready to go?" Victoire asked, suddenly appearing at his side and biting back her smile.

"Yep," he grinned and threw his arm around her shoulder as they turned to exit the Great Hall. Victoire stopped trying to hold back her laughter and let it go as they walked towards the double doors. Her loud, hearty cackling actually garnered a few fearful looks from people and whispers followed them out of the Great Hall.

Did the Head Boy just get detention? On the first day of term? Before classes started?!"

"I know! That was so cool…and gross!"

"Ugh, I think I've got bird shit on me!"

"He's dreamy. Do you think he's available?"

"Nah. He's always with that Victoire girl."

"Before breakfast ended!"

"Do you think that they're finally _together_ together?"

_If only_, Teddy thought, squeezing Victoire in a one-armed hug as she leaned against him for support in her giggle-seized state.

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sorry about they delay in posting, but me and chapter 6 here did not get along for awhile. Anywho, I love the song posted at the top--its a near perfect Teddy/Vic song though I see the prank scene playing out to "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin. Please, Read and Review!**


	7. OH! So, That's What This Is!

"**It's always tease, tease, tease. You're happy when I'm on my knees. One day is fine, next is black. So, if you want me off your back, well, come on and let me know."**

**-Should I Stay or Should I Go? By The Clash**

"Official copy of your O.W.L scores, signed and magically sealed?"

"Check," Teddy said as he placed the document squarely on top of the growing pile of others before him.

"Three personal recommendations," Victoire read from the list she was holding. She was stretched out in front of the fireplace, her feet in the air, as she helped Teddy put together his Auror application for the third time. He just wanted to be absolutely certain that he had not forgotten anything before he sent it off.

"Go on…"

"The first from Professor Merryheart of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Check."

"One from Kingsley Shacklebolt, Former Minister for Magic."

"Check." Teddy placed Kingsley's official looking letter on top of the one from his Transfiguration professor.

"And last, but certainly not least, a glowing recommendation from Ronald Weasley, Auror."

"Check." Teddy replied with a grin; the recommendation was so well written that he and Victoire were sure that Hermione must have helped him write it.

Victoire stretched like a cat and mused aloud, "I still don't understand why you did not want Uncle Harry to write you a recommendation."

Teddy rolled his eyes. "What? You don't think a letter from Kingsley carries enough prestige?"

"No," Victoire said, drawing out the vowel, "it's just that Uncle Harry is Harry Potter, yeah? Head Auror, Savior of the Wizarding world, etcetera, etcetera…"

Teddy looked down at his application. The day was so dark and gloomy that the firelight cast odd shadows across the parchment. He fiddled with the twine he'd be using to tie it up with. "I just…I just wanted to do this myself, you know?" He looked up at her timidly.

Victoire didn't immediately retort as Teddy has expected. Instead, she searched his face for a moment. Her statuesque features appeared softer in the glow from the fire, and her eyes danced with affection when she smiled up at him with what appeared to be pride. When she finally spoke, her voice was so gentle, so mature and womanly that Teddy barely recognized it as Victoire's. "Yeah, I know."

Teddy was awestruck by how three little words from Victoire, that weren't _those_ three little words, could spark a fire in the pit of his stomach hot enough to burn down the castle.

"Anyway," Teddy said to keep himself from slipping into an elaborate daydream, "I thought a letter from Harry would be overkill, seeing as how he's my godfather, and there is a picture of me on his desk."

"No way! Does he really have a picture of you on his desk?" Victoire exclaimed in sheer delight at Teddy's embarrassing admittance.

"Yeah," he confirmed, amused by how tickled Victoire seemed to be. "Me, James, Al, and Lily. Updated every year, too."

"Oh gosh!" She rolled on the carpet in a fit of giggles that Teddy felt proud to be the source of.

When her laughter ended, Victoire wiped away her mirthful tears with the heel of her hand and stared pensively at the ceiling. Teddy leaned back on his palms and watched the fire in peaceful contemplation until a hitch in Vic's breathing called his attention to her. He looked up in time to see her lip tremble and to watch her wipe away some tears that he didn't think had anything to do with happiness.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Victoire rolled back onto her stomach, scooped up his application, and slid it gently into a large envelope. "This is all set," she explained, handing the documents over to him. Teddy took them, but continued to observe his friend in confusion.

Victoire apparently chose to ignore his questioning glance and declared, "I've got to go if I want to make it to Hogsmeade on time."

"Right," he responded, checking his watch. It was the first Hogsmeade trip of the term, but he had been unsure if Victoire still wanted to go since it was so blustery outside. "I need to replenish my Chocolate Frog supply, amongst other things."

Other things mainly consisted of the alcohol and party supplies he was slowly sneaking into the castle for the blowout he was planning for the end of the school year. He figured he had spent the past seven years being the model student; he needed to go out with a bang that was almost expulsion worthy and live up, just a little, to the Marauder's mischievous legacy. Coming off the success of the start-of-term prank, he saw it as his chance to continue to be more Rio de Janeiro, less Zurich, and he was excited. Teddy's good mood was quickly doused when he saw the look on Victoire's face.

"What?"

"I forgot to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"I told Lucas Hynes that I'd meet him at the Three Broomsticks for…a date."

"Oh, who's Lucas Hynes?" Teddy inquired politely, praying that he didn't look as crestfallen as he felt.

"He's a sixth year Hufflepuff," Victoire said, sounding annoyed.

"Oh."

"Oh! Would you stop looking at me like a wounded puppy!" She snapped, causing Teddy to actually flinch away from her sudden anger. "It's not like I can be expected to spend all my time with you."

Teddy had to admit that her words stung. Unsure of how to respond, he simply nodded, and, snatching up the Auror application from the floor, said, "I need to send this off." He could feel Victoire's eyes following him as he clambered out the portrait hole.

Up in the Owlery, Teddy used the twine to attach his application to his owl, Athena, and one of the school owls. He apprehensively watched them fly away, yet breathed a sigh of relief when he could no longer see them. He toyed with the idea of going to Hogsmeade by himself and meeting up with another friend. However, the weather was hardly conducive to venturing outdoors. A sudden October chill had set upon Hogwarts. Mist rose eerily off the Black Lake as the cold air met the slightly warmer water, and the wind picked it up and blew it across the grounds along with flurries of snow.

It was downright depressing.

He wandered back to Gryffindor tower and pondered Victoire's sudden moodiness. For the past few weeks, she had been acting more like tempestuous Dominique rather than her normally happy self, despite the dramatic decrease in taunting. Her mood swung from high to low so rapidly that it left Teddy dizzy. Though, what bothered him the most was the way Vic would cling to him one moment, literally and figuratively drawing him closer to her than ever, and then push him away the next. On one occasion, Teddy had been reclining on a sofa, reading, when Victoire had curled up next to him and draped his arm around her shoulders. She had rested her head on his chest and left it there for the rest of the night. It was those instances that really drove him barmy, because the next day, Victoire had avoided spending time with him. Then he'd feel foolish for thinking he might have received a favorable response if he had told her how he felt while they sat nestled into the sofa. He felt stupid for assuming that Victoire must be feeling some of what he was feeling when she'd look up at him like that from his chest. Didn't she know what she was doing to him when she came so close? Couldn't she feel the rapid pounding of his heart from where she rested her head? Did she not feel the heat that consumed his body? Victoire's touch was at once torture and new air. It was torture, because it never meant what he wanted it to. It was new air, because he ached for it when it was withheld. It occurred to Teddy that Victoire might be using him as a surrogate boyfriend; whenever she needed a little male attention, he was there to provide it. But he didn't want to be her surrogate boyfriend, dammit! He wanted to be her boyfriend!

"Hey, Ted."

Teddy blinked and looked up, bringing the figure of Kara Adams into view. She was holding a thick stack of flashcards and smiling down at him flirtatiously. "Hi."

"Studying for N.E.W.T.s, too?" She asked, nodding her head to indicate the pile of notes in Teddy's lap. Teddy followed her gaze and blinked again. He was unable to recall coming back to the common room, grabbing his Transfiguration notes, and settling into a sofa to review them.

"Yeah, I guess so." Teddy was surprised by how smooth and inviting his voice sounded.

"You don't mind if I join you, do you?"

Teddy shook his head in an exaggerated fashion and said, "It'd be my pleasure."

Kara slipped off her shoes and sat down. She laid her head against an armrest and stretched her legs across Teddy's lap. It was a familiar position from their late night study sessions, though he was beginning to feel doomed to be the human pillow of lonely, teenage girls.

"So…want to quiz me on Charms?" Kara asked, playfully tossing him a set of flashcards as she did so.

It wasn't long before they were laughing, and it was shortly afterwards that Teddy leaned across the sofa to kiss her. Next thing he was aware of, Teddy was engaged in an intense snogging session with Kara, all pretense of studying gone. They broke apart when they heard a gaggle of first years snickering from a corner. Teddy threw them his best want-to-see-how-fast-you-end-up-in-detention-if-you-don't-bugger-off look as he pulled away from Kara. Either the first years weren't very bright, or his look wasn't very intimidating because they stayed their ground.

"Maybe we should take this somewhere else?" Kara suggested, sounding breathless.

"Good idea," Teddy replied wondering if the Astronomy tower would be uncomfortably cold.

"Maybe your dormitory?"

"Oh…ok."

It really wasn't what Teddy had been expecting, but Kara was already heading towards the boys' staircase. He followed in the least conspicuous way he could muster, but obviously failed when more giggling erupted from the first years.

_Ruddy bunch of miniature voyeurs_, he thought as he climbed the spiral staircase. When he got up there, Kara had already found his bed and seated herself on it. He walked over to the four-poster and froze.

There was just something about Kara Adams staring up at him seductively from his bed that seemed wrong to Teddy, almost like he was cheating. Which was complete nonsense, because he was not romantically involved with Victoire despite his daydreaming, and she was off with some other bloke anyway. The only entity he could possibly be betraying was his own heart; Kara was not the girl he wanted to be having an all-out snog-fest on his bed with. It made him nervous, and Teddy resisted the urge to bite his nails. Still, it was an extremely tempting offer—Kara, not his nails.

If he chose to continue what they had started downstairs, Kara would become the first girl he'd ever had in his bed. The only other girl that had ever been there was Victoire, but only in the most platonic way. After all, nothing says sexy like a Weasley jumper and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms with fluffy pink and white clouds on them. Though, he did find it intriguing the way Victoire's midriff peeked out just a little when she'd raise her arms to stretch and…he really, really needed to stop thinking about Vic.

"Are you okay?" Kara asked. It was a justified question since Teddy had just been standing next to the bed staring off into space since they had arrived up here.

He couldn't shove Victoire or the fact that a different girl was in his bed out of his mind, and the two thoughts swirled together in a convoluted mess. He wondered what would happen if things didn't go well. It wasn't promising that they would. In fact, the last time Victoire had been up here, she had sworn off boys, and Teddy had gotten kicked in the groin. The two events were surprisingly unrelated. Still, it wasn't exactly encouraging. Teddy thought the bed might have been cursed by some former Hogwart's pupil, bitter about having never gotten any in his whole seven year stint, which would be him if he didn't stop having a mental argument with himself and kiss the very pretty girl who was sitting on his bed and…and…

_Bloody hell! Where'd she learn to do that?"_

Teddy assumed that there must be a class girls take on how to unbutton a blouse tantalizingly, achingly, infuriatingly slow, because Kara Adams surely must have been the top of her class.

He swore he heard himself whimper, just a little. Her actions were a turn-on, no doubt, but they also embarrassed him. He felt too inexperienced for this; he no longer had any idea as to what was going on or what was expected of him. He wondered if this was second base or third. Teddy only ever had a fuzzy notion of the classic sports metaphor. Things like scoring and 'beating the bludger' were fairly obvious, but he was still lost as to where penalty shots ranked on the sports-to-sex scale. He'd have to have Dex explain it to him again later.

It was about that time that Teddy began having a difficult time forming coherent thoughts, seeing as how Kara had finished removing her top.

"You're not wearing a shirt," he blurted out in a completely unrefined way.

Kara looked taken aback. A curious affectation for a girl who had just been brazen enough to strip in front of boy she didn't know very well. "Is that not all right?"

_Oh, great job, Ted! You can call that one 'dropping the quaffle.'_

"No, its fine. Fine," he said, hoping to salvage the situation.

"Oh." Kara looked unconvinced. "If you're not feeling _up_ to this right now, we can-"

She never finished her comment, because Teddy suddenly bent down and smashed his mouth against hers. He knew, just knew, that Kara had used those words specifically to goad him. He was a little angry with her, but angrier with himself because it had worked.

His kiss was rough as he wound his hand into the back of brunette locks. Kara was pressed horizontal by his weight, and Teddy could feel her smile victoriously against his mouth. He allowed her to tug his t-shirt above his head. She let his hands roam over her body; he found her knee, and his hand began to creep its way up her leg. He was surrounded by a cacophony of hot breaths and small sounds of pleasure. Teddy had just thought that he probably should have pulled the bed hangings closed when he heard the door swing open, a gasp, and an all too familiar voice stammering incoherently behind him.

"Uh! Um…er—I'll just go."

Teddy sprang away from Kara as though she was suddenly made of red-hot metal. Unfortunately, the action left Kara's upper half exposed to Victoire, who stood in the doorway shielding her eyes with her hand. She nearly tumbled down the stairs as she hastily backed away.

"S-s-sorry. Um, oh!"

Victoire turned on her heel and bolted out of view. Teddy followed, pulling his shirt back over his head as he raced down the stairs. He caught up to her just as she placed one foot on the bottom step of the girl's staircase.

"Vic, wait up!" He called.

She paused for a moment, but seemed altogether determined to keep going and ignore him. Teddy grabbed her arm with just enough force to get her to stop and talk to him. Victoire jerked away from him violently and said angrily, "Please, just don't touch me right now!" She sounded practically hysterical.

Teddy let go immediately and raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. "I just wanted to talk to you." He lowered his head to try and look at Victoire's face, but she turned away so that he wouldn't be able to. Her refusal to look at him was frustrating.

"Later," she said with forced calm, though her head was still turned away from him. "We'll talk later."

"Oh…ok." He found it really annoying how often he had repeated those two two-letter words today. He really ought to find something more clever to say.

"You shouldn't keep Kara waiting," Victoire spat, her voice sounding choked as she ran up the stairs. Teddy stared after her until he heard the dormitory door click shut.

Feeling thoroughly confused by the day's events, Teddy turned back towards the boys' dormitory, nearly bumping into Kara as he made his way up the stairs.

"I think this is over, don't you?" she asked bluntly, pausing in her flight. Teddy could tell by her tone that she meant their whole arrangement., and not just today's fiasco.

He nodded and added, "Kara, I'm really sorry."

She smiled weakly as she slowly continued her journey. Turning back, she said, "I really like you, Ted; I have for years, and I thought maybe…well, its so obvious now." She used her thumb to wipe away the one tear that leaked from her dark eyes and walked away.

"What's obvious?" Teddy asked the void. Having received no response, he continued to trudge up the stairs. He opened the door to his dormitory slowly, closing it with his body as he leaned back against it. It was incredible how quickly his afternoon had turned to misery. Kara was crying, Victoire was either so embarrassed or ashamed of him that she couldn't look at him, and he had the pleasure of feeling guilty about both girls' distress.

"Fuck," he swore, groaning out his misery.

"I suppose that just about sums it up."

Teddy recoiled at the sound of another voice. He had assumed he was alone in the dormitory. Turning his head, he saw Brian stroll out of the bathroom. Teddy was perturbed that everyone he thought to be in Hogsmeade was actually in Gryffindor tower.

"Why aren't you in Hogsmeade?" He asked, voicing his distress. "Where's Chrys?"

Brian shrugged as began to search through his trunk. "Chrys had a Divination essay that she put off and wanted to come back early."

"Why were you in the loo?"

There was a momentary silence between the two boys as Brian shot Teddy a why-do-you-think look. When Teddy only blinked in response, he scratched the bridge of his nose and obliged his clearly demented friend, "Well, when Chrys and I came into the common room, you seemed, er, busy with Kara so I just headed up here to use the loo. When I tried to come out, you and Kara were up here, so I just stayed in there." Brian shifted his weight from foot to foot. He was such a nervous, ungraceful person on solid ground that it was sometimes difficult to remember that Brian was a Chaser for Gryffindor. Or, that he had somehow managed to convince Chrysanthemum Fu, a bossy, intimidating girl despite her mere height of five feet, to fall head-over-heels, madly in love with him. They had gotten together after Brian had consoled Chrys after Slytherin's brutal defeat of Gryffindor, during which she as Seeker had given up the snitch to Slytherin's McFarland. They had been inseparable ever since in the most disgustingly adorable way.

"Did you know Denny uses lavender-scented aftershave?" Brian queried conversationally. "I didn't even know they made lavender-scented aftershave."

Teddy didn't respond. Lost in his own head, he wandered over to his bed and sat down with his hand gripping the edge of the mattress and his shoulders next to his ears. Meanwhile, Brian finished searching his trunk and moved on to his wardrobe, flicking through the garments that hung there before bending down to search the pile of clothes that spilled out of the bottom.

"I really like Victoire," Teddy confessed to Brian with the air of a man telling the Head Auror—well, Harry—that he'd used an Unforgivable Curse on a kitten. He exhaled noisily and the sound echoed around the dormitory.

"Uh-huh," Brian said, not looking at Teddy as he ran a hand under his bed. "Have you seen my navy-striped jumper? Chrys wants to wear it while she writes her essay."

Teddy gaped at the teenage boy who was supposedly his best mate, after Victoire of course. Thinking Brian's non-reaction stemmed from a simple misunderstanding of terms, Teddy attempted his confession again. "No, I really, really like Victoire…in that way. You know, as in to fancy, to have a crush on, to have the hots for."

Brian finally looked up at Teddy with a mix of confusion and surprise on his face. Teddy breathed a sigh of relief, as that was more of the reaction he has been hoping for.

"Have the hots for!" Brian exclaimed, "What century and continent do you think this is?" With a shake of the head and a chuckle, he continued his search for the sweater.

"Didn't you hear me tell you that I'm mad about my best friend?" Teddy practically shouted. He was utterly shocked by Brian's blasé attitude. _Some friend,_ he thought.

"What?" Brian asked. There was a pause while he thought about what was going on. "Oh! You expected me to be surprised about that?"

Teddy put his face in his hands. Now Kara's "It's obvious" comment made much more sense to him. Apparently, almost everyone knew he fancied Victoire.

"Sorry, mate," Brian said, "but we've"— he indicated around the room to the other empty beds—"pretty much figured out that you were in love with Victoire the night she was sorted into Gryffindor."

"I'm not in love with her!"

Brian raised a skeptical eyebrow and scratched behind his ear. "So, you just ran out on a half-naked girl lying in your bed begging you to take third base in order to talk to Victoire, your best friend that you have a mild, simple kind of infatuation with?"

"Right," Teddy responded grumpily, hating how ridiculous Brian's blunt summary made the whole scenario sound. He wondered if he honestly was in love with Victoire and just didn't know it. Teddy flopped backwards onto his bed and stared despondently at the ceiling. The room was quiet, but he knew Brian was still there trying to think of what to say.

"So that was third base?" Teddy asked.

Brian laughed. "I don't know, mate. You'll have to ask Dex."

There was another pause before Brian spoke again.

"Listen, Ted," he began from where he stood by the door. "Do you think about Victoire constantly?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Smile and laugh to yourself, like some nutter, when you do?"

"Yeah," Teddy said slowly, trying to figure out how Brian knew.

"Worry about her health every time a bludger comes within three meters of her? And do you mope when she's not around?"

"Yes."

"I hate to break it to you, but you're in love."

"How do you know?" Teddy asked in awe of his usually awkward friend's wisdom.

Brian shrugged with a sheepish grin and said, "That's how I feel about Chrys, and I am in love with her—Ah!" Brian had finally spotted the missing jumper, grabbed it, and left the room without another word. Brian's exit ended a conversation that neither he nor Teddy would ever admit to having.

**A/N: What'd you think? Some parts were meant to be humorous, and I'm always concerned that they don't come across. Hope you enjoyed it, please read and review! They make my day and I appreciate them all so much.**


	8. Rhapsody

"**Haven't I been true to you? I hold back what I say. No emotions get in the way. I control what you want me to. Haven't I been true to you?"**

**--Been True by Tom Brosseau**

Teddy stared up at the ceiling, his hands folded behind his head, attempting to sort out his feelings for Victoire. Could he really be in love with her?

Maybe. Probably. Yes?

Was that what this was then, this constant longing and uncertainty was love?

_Well,_ Teddy thought, _love wasn't nearly as fun as people made it out to be_.

But then he wondered if that was because his love was of yet unrequited. He tried to imagine how different it would feel if he knew Victoire loved him back. He supposed that would take care of the uncertainty part and the longing when she was near him. Though, he supposed the longing would only return ten fold when she had to go back to Hogwarts and he stayed behind to work. But then there would be a day when they were both graduated from school and working; they'd probably have a lot of time to spend with each other once they no longer had any schoolwork to occupy their time. They could use that time to do the things that adult couples did, whatever that was (_antiquing_?). They'd have their own flats too, most likely. No flatmates and no parents all sounded good. Maybe they could get a place together after a while…

Teddy brought his hand up and slapped himself on the forehead to keep from slipping further into his daydream. Had he gone barmy? They were still in school, and he was thinking about living with Victoire. Even crazier since Victoire didn't love him even if he did love her.

Which brought him full circle to the original question. Did he love Victoire?

_Well, of course, you do,_ he thought, _you've been saying that for years._

_But, am I in love with Victoire? _

Teddy was blown away by how such a small, ubiquitous two-letter word could create such a distinction. Slip it in front of love and suddenly you're playing a whole new game. A game that he did not feel prepared to play.

Teddy rolled over onto his stomach and groaned into his pillow; he wasn't accomplishing anything except to talk himself in circles. Bored, and in desperate need of something to amuse himself with, Teddy sat up and pulled his father's journal from his bedside table. He scowled at the picture bookmark and the happy faces of him and Victoire's picture selves. Tossing it aside, he read that days entry. The page was creased, as though it had been crinkled and smoothed again after a scuffle.

_October 29__th__, 1977_

_Well, I've officially began to study for my N.E. today, much to the amusement of Padfoot and Prongs, who are determined to not begin studying until the Spring. I wish I could say that they'd regret their actions when it came test time, but they'd probably be able to scrape by on their tests anyway. Though, considering the interesting development that occurred today between James and one, Miss Lily Evans, Prongs may find himself sequestered into the lib—_

_LILY EVANS KISSED JAMES POTTER TODAY ON THE LIPS._

_Uh, James is excited about this new development and felt the need to steal my journal to write about his 'red-letter day'. He felt that I was not doing this event—grand event, he tells me—enough justice by calling it an "interesting development"; it's more like the second-coming of the angels, he says. So there you have it._

_Things are going well between Anne and I… I think. I'm afraid that she's waiting for me to ask her to Hogsmeade or something since we snogged at Sirius' house-warming party this Summer. And I would, too, except that…Well, just except. _

_Anyway, Padfoot keeps trying to get a good shot at the page to charm James' comment red, so I think I'll stop now._

Teddy tossed the journal aside with disgust. _Great_, he thought, _great._

He found it irksome that everyone's love life was just swell and better than his at the moment. He was really glad Harry was conceived and alive and all that, but what he really wanted to be reading about was how Lily still hated James, and Anne had started dating some non-wolfish bloke; he needed a journal entry that commiserated with him, not one where everything was going well. It was short too, hardly even long enough to be entertaining. He didn't even know why he kept reading it; he'd been having more and more strange dreams. Sometimes they correlated to the entries he'd read and sometimes they didn't, but they always involved a werewolf. Teddy was beginning to feel sleep deprived because of it. He thought that he really ought to just toss the journal into his trunk and not think about it again.

He snatched to book off the bed with the intention of doing just that, but he hesitated. It was the one possession he had that made him feel truly connected to the father he never knew and the name he carried. He couldn't just toss that away. Rolling his eyes at himself, Teddy relaxed his grip on the book, gently slipped the photograph in to mark his place, and put it back into the drawer. He picked up the harmonica that was in there, a gift that Arthur Weasley had found in a Muggle junk shop and given to Teddy. He tried playing a few notes, but, instead of experiencing the relief that always came with music, he felt unsatisfied and restless. Tossing the harmonica back into the drawer, he reached for the guitar leaning against his bedside table. He thought about what he wanted to play, tuned, breathed deeply and got halfway through the song before he gave it up as a lost cause. Quickly and anxiously, he slipped on his shoes and left the dormitory in search of his peace.

He tread a path through the hallways like he had a hundred times before. He remembered the days before he found the Room of Requirement; how as a first year he'd gotten detention for roaming the hallways after hours in search of his first, his best, and most beloved instrument—the piano. Teddy could always count on the piano to ease his sourest moods. The feel of the ivory keys always made him feel as safe as the plush dragon in the Weird Sisters t-shirt had when he was four. The piano, to Teddy, was like a large, not very warm, tonal security blanket. And he needed it now to keep his thoughts from galloping through his head.

He needn't have bothered with the other instruments; he should've known they wouldn't have helped on an afternoon like this. Back in first year, he wrote to Harry about how playing the bass for Flitwick's ensemble wasn't cutting it, and how he'd gotten detention because he went searching for a piano. The family had rallied together to solve the small woe. Harry bought him an acoustic guitar for Christmas, Arthur had found the harmonica, and the others had sent along various small percussion pieces. Though he appreciated their efforts and loved the guitar—it made him feel so cool--Teddy kept his eye out for an opportunity to sneak into the choir room for a few minutes with the accompanist's piano until Ron made a simple, but brilliant suggestion:

"Why doesn't he just go to the Room of Requirement?"

"What's the Room of Requirement?" Teddy asked immediately as the adults all stared around at each other in shock. Each face bore the same why-didn't-I-think-of-that look. Harry had then told Teddy that if he went to the seventh floor and walked past the tapestry with the dancing trolls three times, that a room containing anything he needed would appear.

"So…" Teddy has responded, "If I walk past the dancing troll tapestry four times—"

"Three times."

"Right. If I walk past the dancing troll tapestry three times then a room with a piano will just appear?"

"Exactly."

"Or, a room full of chamber pots," Ron chimed in.

"What's a chamber pot?" Ever inquisitive James had asked. The explanation of what a chamber pot was lead to a chorus of "ewws" and scrunched faces from the Potter boys, and at least two weeks worth of "No, you're a stinky chamber pot" and "If you don't stop that, I'm going to dump my chamber pot on you." Teddy didn't think Ginny had ever truly forgiven Ron for that.

So, there he was again. On the seventh floor walking past the tapestry three times. The door appeared; he opened it and found his comfort zone. It was not the grandest piano out there, just an upright that was very similar to the one at his grandmother's. He liked it better that way.

Settling on the bench, his fingers rambled over the keys waiting for a split decision from him to form the noise into notes and chords. Teddy began with a sonata. It was a piece that had been rolling around in the back of his mind all afternoon, and with every note, he could feel his frustration leak out through his fingertips as though the faithful instrument were absorbent. But it was a duet, meant for a piano and a violin, and the sonata lost its essence without its counterpart; he always thought that the pull of the bow along the string was the composer's way of pulling the soul of the listener along with the music. Teddy slowed to a halt, cursing himself for never learning the violin or, more practically in this situation, for not being able to play more than one instrument at once. He let his hands wander aimlessly over the keyboard, thumping out familiar chords every now and then. He paused. He hit a key. And then another and another, slowly forming a new pattern. However, his original creation faltered when it took on a familiar sounding tune. Teddy retracted his hands from the keyboard looking ashamed, as though he felt unworthy of touching them. He sighed and, once again, resigned himself to the fact that he'd never be able to create music. He could play until his fingers had calluses inches thick, he could listen until his ears bled, but never would he be able to form something that wasn't just a bastardized copy of another great man's work.

Well, if there was to be no composing in his life, at least there was Liszt. Teddy still couldn't believe, even as the sheet music magically appeared on the stand in front of him, that Franz Liszt, a virtuoso so exceptional and strange, had been a Muggle! Then again, Teddy supposed that music was a type of magic unto itself.

Teddy barely needed the sheet music as he played, he'd chosen this piece so often. Yet, it was a difficult piece and the concentration required to hit all the correct notes and keys cooled his feverish mind. His thoughts became streamlined; rubbish and inconsistencies were eliminated until only two things remained—the notes on the page and a fact.

He loved, was in love with Victoire.

It made so much sense. It was so easy to admit. And it was so simple, compared to the music of Franz Liszt.

He'd worry about whether or not he had the guts to tell her after he finished because this—_this_—was bloody fantastic. Teddy didn't feel like he was playing anymore; it felt more like flying, freeing and exhilarating, though his feet continued to work the pedals and his hands were most definitely not clutching a broomstick but flowing over the keys and hitting notes like it was their destiny. Every once and a while, he'd glance up through his hair, now turquoise of its own accord, to make sure he was on track as he poured everything he had into the music. It wasn't perfect, and his well-trained ear picked up on his mistakes. But it didn't matter either; this was something that he did for himself and himself alone. Teddy had to admit that it felt glorious to be so selfish.

He continued to play even after he'd finished the piece, dabbling here and there with some jazzier pieces, slipping into pop songs. Only when his stomach began clambering for food did he stop. Feeling much better about his life, Teddy stood, stretched, and opened the door only to have Victoire tumble through it and onto his feet.

"Are you okay? What are you doing here?" Teddy rapidly fired off. He bent to help Victoire to her feet, but hesitated to touch her when he remembered their encounter from earlier.

"Hello to you, too," Victoire retorted as she stood, "Yes, I am okay, and I was worried about you when you didn't show up for dinner and you weren't in your dorm. I figured I'd come looking for you here."

"Oh," Teddy replied, suddenly beginning to feel awkward, "Why were you leaning up against the door?"

"Well, it wasn't a door, was it? It was a solid stonewall until you decided to open it up." Victoire said cattily.

Teddy laughed, but continued his interrogation. "But that just begs to question why you were leaning up against a solid stonewall?"

He was surprised to see Victoire blush. "I was just trying to see if I could hear you playing."

Flattered and embarrassed, Teddy gazed skeptically at the much talked about stonewall. "Any luck?" He asked.

Victoire shook her head, and said, as she shut them into the Room of Requirement, "Listen, Ted, about earlier…"

The use of "Ted" by Victoire meant that she was going to speak about something serious or upsetting, and it only served to remind Teddy of his epiphany and the question he had left unanswered: _Do I tell her?_

Love, he reckoned, wasn't something you kept to yourself. Even if you tried, it would probably just find a way to show itself and then without the comfort of one being in control of it. But there was always the risk that Victoire would not only not return his feelings, but also take it badly. It could ruin their friendship, or it could make him very happy.

Teddy met Victoire's eyes for a moment, increasing the tense silence that had fallen on them. She looked as though she was contemplating what to say, or maybe she was waiting for him to say something.

"I'm sorry." They said at the same time.

There was another momentary pause, and a few seconds of uncomfortable chuckling before Victoire asked, "What are you sorry about?"

"About this afternoon; you were upset."

"You shouldn't apologize for that. That was my fault, and I over-reacted. It's not like you were doing anything wrong."

Teddy shifted his weight uncomfortably. He didn't know how to explain to Victoire that the whole incident with Kara had felt wrong, even if it wasn't immoral. Also, he had technically been breaking at least four school rules at the time. "Well, what are you sorry about then?" He inquired.

"Where to begin," Victoire sighed, flopping onto a cushy sofa that had suddenly appeared in the room. "First, I'm sorry I yelled at you and pushed you away. I know that hurt your feelings. Second, I'm sorry I just barged into your dormitory without knocking—sorry for myself and you and Kara on that one. It was stupid of me to assume that you'd just be sitting around waiting for me to come back to school. And lastly, I'm very sorry that I was mean to you before I left for Hogsmeade. In fact, I was looking for you to apologize for that when I walked in on you and Kara." Victoire put her face in her hands when she was done with her speech, as though overcome with the weight of her transgressions.

"You're right," Teddy responded teasingly, sitting on the sofa next to Victoire, "you should be sorry." He elbowed her playfully in the ribs.

"Shut up," she mumbled into her hands. "Do you forgive me, though?"

"Shut up, but do you forgive me!" Teddy exclaimed, "what a way to make an apology."

Victoire shrugged.

"Of course, I forgive you. And I'm still sorry that you were upset."

Victoire just smiled and shook her head. They enjoyed another silence, while Teddy contemplated telling her about his feelings.

"Vic, I love you."

Nah, Teddy thought, too childish.

He tried again. "Victoire, I am in love with you."

Too formal. He supposed that since they were the only two people in the room and he was looking right at her that he could just say the all-important phrase.

"I love you."

Victoire, who had been sitting with her face resting in her palms, reached out a hand and patted Teddy's knee. "I know."

That was far too relaxed of a response for Victoire to have understood what he meant. He'd have to put that damn two-letter word in there.

"No," he clarified, "I am_ in_ love with you."

She stiffened, and Teddy could see her eyes widen even in profile. There was a deafening silence as Teddy let Victoire absorb what he had told her.

"Please, tell me that you're joking." She turned to look at him.

He shook his head solemnly no.

Victoire's face contorted into anger. She jumped up from the sofa screaming, "I hate you. Stay away from me!"

"Vic, wait—" Teddy called after her, but she had already stormed out of the room.

"Yoohoo, earth to Teddy," Victoire called, waving her hand in front of his face. Teddy was pulled from his daydream, and he realized that he was still sitting on the sofa next to Victoire in the Room of Requirement.

So maybe it wasn't such a good idea to tell her, he thought as surveyed Victoire. She was looking at him expectantly, like maybe she had asked a question. Her eyes were wide and sparkling, her mouth turned up prettily into a smile, and he reconsidered, thinking that maybe he could tell her.

"I am in love with you."

That didn't seem so hard, despite the apprehension he felt watching Victoire stiffen and her eyes grow wider with realization.

"Please, don't tell me that you're joking? That this is only a dream?"

Teddy shook his head solemnly no.

"Oh, Teddy," Victoire cried, throwing her arms around his neck, "I love you, too!"

They began to snog desperately on the sofa…

"Yoohoo, earth to Teddy…again!" Victoire said, this time snapping her fingers in front of his face. "What's up with you today?" She asked when he came to.

"Nothing, nothing," he responded, waving her hand out his face. The second scenario was even less likely than the first, despite being more pleasant, and Teddy came to the conclusion that he would need more time to formulate a better plan of attack before telling Victoire that he loved her.

"What'd you say?" He asked as Victoire stood up to leave the room.

"I asked if you were hungry, because you missed dinner."

"I missed dinner!" Teddy cried in disappointment; his stomach gave another rumble.

"Yes, but don't despair, because you have me to take of you." Victoire responded brattily, holding out a napkin filled with chicken and rolls.

"Thanks," he said, truly grateful that she had thought of him despite the fact that they had been arguing earlier. Curiosity bubbled up inside of him, and he suddenly had to know something. "Vic, why did you get so upset earlier?"

Victoire shrugged and joked, "You mean other than for being mentally scarred by Kara's naked bosom?"

Teddy rolled his eyes, and said, "Yeah, other than that."

Victoire looked pensive a moment before she spoke. "It sounds ridiculous, but I guess I'd never thought of you as an, um, sexual being—like you weren't a bloke; you were always just Teddy."

Teddy swore his heart had actually plummeted to his stomach.

"And it was just weird, yeah? It freaked me out."

This was just getting better and better.

"I mean, its not like I could ever think of you in _that_ way."

Teddy was gutted. He thought that literally being slashed navel to neck wouldn't have been nearly as painful as Victoire's words. It was an amazingly quick turn around from realizing he was in love to being heartbroken.

"Teddy?" Victoire called from a few paces up the hallway. He'd stopped walking abruptly after her last comment. Despite the fact that his appetite had completely vanished, he bit into a piece of chicken.

"This is good," he lied. He swallowed and smiled brightly at Victoire as he caught up to her. "How was your date?" He asked as he continued to eat, hoping against hope that he sounded normal, playful even, though he felt like the entire castle was spinning.

"Well," Victoire mused playfully, unaware of Teddy's distress, "Other than Lucas being a pompous bore, not so bad."

She turned her face away as she filled him in on the details of her date, and Teddy let the smile fall from his own now that she couldn't see him.

**A/N: Happy birthday, Bagoosa!** **Hope you all enjoyed this chapter.**


	9. Ravenclaw vs Weasley

"**Breathe…keep breathing. Don't lose your nerve. Breathe…keep breathing. I can't do this alone. Sing us a song, a song to keep us warm. There's such a chill. Such a chill."**

**-Exit Music (for a film) by Radiohead**

Teddy couldn't believe that Dexter had been stupid enough to let people know that there was a werewolf at Hogwarts. Didn't he realize that mischievous people would want to go check it out? People like James Sirius Potter, and Freddie and Roxy Weasley.

At least he had caught up to them just as they managed to freeze the Whomping Willow. The three of them might have been crouching under Harry's old invisibility cloak, but Teddy had the Marauder's Map. And the Marauder's Map never lied.

Just as he had finished his rant about being stupidly irresponsible, how we was going to write to both their parents as soon as they got back to the castle, an outbreak of giggling from James brought Teddy's attention to the fact that something wasn't quite right.

"What are you not telling me?" he interrogated the trio.

"Victoire is already down there," Roxy answered, the only one to have the decency to look ashamed.

For a split second, he was paralyzed with fear, the possibilities of the danger she could run into stole his breath. Teddy quickly recovered, however, and slid into the tunnel himself.

"Shit!" He shouted when he hit his head on the tunnel for the third time. He leaned back on his heels, and cradled his throbbing head in his hands. His hair was now plastered with dirt, his knees ached terribly, and his palms were scraped up from crawling on all fours. He carried his lit wand in his teeth as he continued to shuffle along, attempting to call Victoire's name past the wood and the saliva that pooled in his mouth. Teddy had never considered himself to be claustrophobic, but he found his entire predicament nauseating.

He saw the faint glimmer of wand light as he rounded a corner.

"Victoire!" He slurred.

"Teddy?" The familiar voice questioned back. There was a pause, then, "I'm not going back if that's what you're here for."

Teddy pulled his wand out of his mouth to respond. "You have to; you don't understand the danger that you're in."

"I just want one little peek," her voice said, fading away.

"No, Vic, come back." Teddy popped the wand back into his mouth and began to crawl again, faster than before. "You don't want to know who it is." His stomach churned.

"But you know," Victoire accused, "you're always keeping secrets from me. I want to know the secret, too."

"Please, stop," he muttered pointlessly as his vision began to blur. He felt clammy, sweaty yet still impossibly cold. The tunnel throbbed like an artery around him, his vision went red, and the bile rose in his throat. Teddy removed his wand just before he lost control and vomited all over the floor. Shivering, he sat back against the wall and shut his eyes to wait for the nausea to pass. A victorious sounding whoop from up ahead motivated him to keep going.

He edged around the sick the best he could and crawled on.

Victoire was kneeling under the trap door that led to the Shrieking Shack when he came upon her. She ran her hands along the square cut out, feeling for how to open it.

"Vic, please come back. I promise I'll tell you who it is." Teddy pleaded from a few feet away.

"It's too late now, Teddy: I want to see for myself."

"No, you don—Vic, watch out!" He cried as the trapdoor was suddenly wrenched open from above. One large, muscular hand with yellowed fingernails like claws reached down and grabbed Victoire by her hair, causing her to scream. The untransformed werewolf retained his grip on Victoire, but poked his head through the door. He looked around the tunnel, his eyes landing on Teddy who had frozen and was stuttering incoherently. Seeing the fear in his eyes, the werewolf grinned wickedly, exposing crooked razor sharp teeth. He sniffed Victoire, running his nose up the length of her neck and over her hair. Victoire whimpered in pain, eyes wide with fear, as the werewolf tightened his grip on her hair. Teddy heard himself shout, "NO!" as, with one more evil glance in his direction, the werewolf pulled Victoire up through the trapdoor. Her legs kicked wildly about as she screamed and struggled to free herself, but to no avail. She quickly disappeared from Teddy's view and any hope he had of saving her.

Teddy suddenly felt as though he'd been plunged into a pool of pitch black water. There was no light to see by. He knew he was screaming, but he couldn't hear it. He knew he was frantically beating his fists against the walls and ceiling, further scraping up his hands, but he couldn't feel the pain. All was just the pounding of his blood through his veins and the vibrations, the echoes, of his actions cruelly showcasing how futile they were. Thinking he heard something behind him, Teddy turned his head but was met only with the impenetrable darkness. When he turned back around, Victoire's pale face was only centimeter's from his own, three scratch marks running diagonal across the once perfect features.

"Help me," she whispered, and her voice cut the soundlessness that surrounded Teddy.

Suddenly, he could hear his screaming, his shout of "Victoire!" as he pulled her close and began to back away from the trap door and the monster on the other side. As they crawled away, Teddy felt a sudden tug on his arms. Victoire gasped once and looked at Teddy with eyes full of terror before she was being dragged away back into the darkness, screaming. She grasped at Teddy's arms, painfully digging her nails into his skin in an attempt to keep from being pulled away, but it was useless. Teddy felt her slip from his arms. He lunged forward to grab her again, only to have her pulled away in a grotesque game of tug-of-war.

She was screaming and screaming, in fright and in pain, and the noise mixed with the snarling of the wolf and Teddy's cries until everything was sound and it reverberated painfully around the narrow tunnel.

"Please! No! Vic—" He shouted over and over again incoherently.

Teddy reached forward and used all his strength to give one last pull. It worked, and he and Victoire tumbled backwards when the wolf released his prize. Teddy righted himself immediately, and holding Victoire up under her shoulder, helped her crawl back towards the entrance to the tunnel. Teddy spoke to Victoire in a constant stream of reassurances.

"Are you ok? Did he bite you? Everything's going to be fine," he whispered.

The tunnel stretched bleakly before and after them. The lack of identifying markers made it nearly impossible to tell how close they were to the Whomping Willow, how close they were to freedom and fresh air. Teddy lost track of time, and just kept up his reassurances until a soft voice broke through the stream.

"Teddy," Victoire called weakly. "Teddy. Too tired."

He stopped and turned around. "What's wrong?"

"My leg," she barely managed to get out. Teddy helped her sit back against the wall for support while he examined her leg. A deep gash ran the length of her right thigh, bleeding profusely. He could see a thick smear of blood trailing behind them that glimmered sickly in his wand light.

The panic that had began to die since their escape from the werewolf returned ten fold as he took in Victoire's pale, wax-like complexion and the lips that were tinged blue. Teddy began to conjure bandages that secured themselves tightly around Victoire's thigh, but they soaked through faster than he could create them. Victoire watched his actions with a detached look, as though her mind was somewhere else entirely.

"I can't fix it!" Teddy half-sobbed angrily as he continued to conjure bandages, "I don't know the spell; I can't fix it!" His throat tightened painfully. "I can't fix it!"

"Teddy."

Teddy paused his frantic movements to look at Victoire. "Cold," she said.

He awkwardly shrugged out of his robes and draped them loosely around Victoire. He bundled her close to his body, and held her there to keep her warm. With eyes closed, Teddy continued to whisper comforting thoughts into her hair until he felt the body in his arms go limp. He froze. His only movement was to slowly open his eyes. It felt as though even the blood had stopped coursing through his veins. A long moment passed before he brought Victoire away from his chest to look at her. Her eyes were glassy and unseeing and her features were slack. Tears began to obscure his vision as he hesitated to bring two fingers up to her neck, scared to confirm what he already knew. Finally, he placed them on her skin and waited for the heartbeat that didn't come and waited and waited, until the flesh grew cold beneath his touch. Hot tears spilled from his eyes then, running down the length of his face and falling onto Victoire's body. He flattened his palm against her chest for a minute before he gently ran his hand over her shoulder. He gathered her close to him again and sobbed his apology that he could not save her into her hair. He cursed the gods and himself for allowing this to happen, and then prayed for them to take it all back and make it right. Teddy finally told her how he loved her, and how much she meant to him. He sobbed like he'd never had before and was unlikely to ever do again. He sat back on his heels in the tunnel, rocking back and forth and embracing the corpse of his love. And he cried and cried and cried…

"Ted. Ted! Wake up!"

Teddy flailed awake to see Brian standing over him, shaking him by the shoulders. Feeling disoriented, he looked wildly around the room at the sleeping forms of his other dormmates. Embarrassment quickly settled in as Brian released his grip.

"What? What happened?"

"Nothing. You were just flailing around and mumbling in your sleep."

"Was I—was I," Teddy stammered. He wanted to ask if he'd been crying in his sleep, but was too ashamed to admit it. "Was I being loud? Did I wake anyone else up?"

"Not really," Brian responded, "I was awake anyway. Nerves, you know?"

Teddy nodded; the Quidditch match against Ravenclaw was tomorrow. He grabbed his watch off the bedside table. Actually, the match against Ravenclaw was this morning. He rubbed his eyes and felt a little moisture there. "You should get some sleep, mate," he groaned, "sorry to keep you up."

Brian had just opened his mouth to say something when Denny cut him off from the bed on the other side of Teddy's.

"Look, would you two pansies stop gossiping and just shut the hell up already? Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Pansies?" Brian mused, "this coming from the bloke who uses lavender-scented after shave."

"I heard that," Denny mumbled into his pillow.

"Fuck off, then," Teddy retorted and threw his pillow at his grumpy dormmate.

Denny made a lewd hand gesture complete with sound effects in response and sequestered Teddy's pillow into his own collection.

"Great, now it's going to have drool all over it." He said as Denny began to snore again.

"Wanker," Brian shrugged as he padded back to his own bed

Teddy rolled over in an attempt to find a comfortable position in his now pillowless bed.

* * *

"Are you all right?" Teddy asked Victoire as she sidled into the seat next to his for breakfast the morning of the Quidditch match against Ravenclaw.

The team had just come back in from checking the weather conditions, which were miserable. Swirls of snow and ice blew fiercely through the air, which was so cold as to cause physical pain when inhaled. Teddy didn't understand why they needed to go outside to figure that out, he had deduced all that simply by looking at the ceiling of the Great Hall. Now, Vic's nose and cheeks were red and chafed, her neat plait messy, and she still shivered a little as she pulled a platter of scrambled eggs towards herself. However, it was the listless manner in which she stared at the food she had just served herself that concerned Teddy.

"Yeah…fine," she responded, stabbing at her plate but not eating. "What about you? You're not looking too great yourself."

Teddy had woken up with dark circles under his eyes. The uneasy feeling from his dream had lingered with him the rest of the night, making it difficult for him to sleep even if he had a pillow. He shrugged in response and brought the conversation back to Victoire. "Are you sure you're feeling ok? You look flushed."

Victoire contemplated her plate a moment before speaking. "It's just Roger," she sighed.

Teddy was surprised to say the least. Victoire hadn't even mentioned Roger Davies II name in months. And in a moment of panic, Teddy wondered if she still harbored feelings for the slimeball.

"He's captain of the Ravenclaw team, you know. And, while there is always rivalry between houses before a game—I mean, the Ravenclaws have been really nasty this time around. I think it's because of me."

Teddy's fear subsided, and he began to see Victoire's point. He had been running around like Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle all week trying to keep track of all the hallway hexings, injuries, and pranks pulled, mostly, on Gryffindors. Yet, Teddy knew it wouldn't do Victoire any good to confirm that she had something to worry about.

"Yeah, but Ravenclaw has always played fair in the past, I don't see that there is any reason to worry."

Victoire smiled a little and stuck a forkful of eggs into her mouth. "I hope your right," she said after swallowing. Teddy hoped he was too.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

It was in fact, the dirtiest game of Quidditch he ever saw played. Not to mention, commentated for.

"And it is Davies with the Quaffle making a drive down the pitch towards the Gryffindor goal posts." Teddy spoke rapidly into the magical megaphone as the ferocious game played out before him. His friend, Dexter Gadsby, was next to him in the stands, writing notes for the school paper with equal quickness onto a small pad of parchment.

A well-aimed bludger hit by Roxy in Davies direction caused him to duck and drop the Quaffle into the waiting arms of Jamie Kidd below, a Gryffindor chaser.

"It's Gryffindor's Quaffle after a brilliant collaborative effort by R. Weasley, and Kidd. Kidd passes it to Munderson. Munderson dodges Jaspar, shoots, and SCOORES! 50: 40, Gryffindor lead."

A whistle blew just as Teddy finished his commentary. He turned his attention down to the other side of the pitch and frowned. The flying coach, Mr. Kendricks, was having Victoire rotate her shoulder; one of the Ravenclaw beaters had used the distraction of a Gryffindor goal to hit her with a Bludger. Even as she proved to the teacher that she could still play, Victoire brought one of her hands up to cover her cough. Seemingly satisfied that she was fit to continue, Mr. Kendricks made the call.

"Penalty on Ravenclaw," Teddy announced, "for attacking the Keeper when the Quaffle was not in the scoring area."

The teams lined up for Gryffindor's penalty shot. Jamie Kidd, looking very upset about Victoire's injury, took the shot and missed. Play resumed, though Teddy continued to worry about Victoire. Her reaction times were slower than usual, and the Ravenclaw team's aggressiveness was making her flustered. She'd already dodged six Bludgers hit her way, and allowed four goals, two of which should've been easy saves for her. He hoped Chrys caught the snitch soon, and turned his eyes upward to watch the two Seekers search for the small, golden ball though visibility was dismal.

The players streaked down towards the Gryffindor goal posts. One of the Ravenclaw chasers threw the Quaffle towards the right hoop, but Victoire caught it easily and threw it back into play. Brian caught it, but dropped it when he rolled over on his broom to avoid taking a Bludger to his head. The Ravenclaws were doing an excellent job of keeping the Quaffle near the Gryffindor hoops. A Ravenclaw beater pushed Freddie out of the way to get to a Bludger. He hit it in one elegant arc, and Teddy saw that his partner hit the other Bludger, each one intended for the same target.

"Vic, watch out!" Teddy shouted into the magical megaphone, but Victoire had no sooner turned to see one Bludger heading for her when the other pounded squarely into her back causing her to spin wildly out of control. For a second, she was flattened against the handle of her broom. As she sat up, she removed one of her hands from its grip on the handle to feel her spine for injury. The other Bludger hit her in the gut then, breaking the loose grip she had on her broom. She and the broom flew backwards for a moment, her head snapping back into the middle goal post before she slipped unconscious from her broom.

Teddy passed off the magical megaphone to Dexter, and bolted from the stands. He flew down the stairs and vaulted the fence to the pitch, Dominique and Louis close behind him. Victoire lay so still and pale when he finally arrived at her side that Teddy felt like his nightmare had somehow become a reality.

Luckily, Jamie and Brian had been close enough to catch Victoire by either arm as she fell, and they had managed to lower her gently to the ground. And, though he told himself that magic could heal almost anything and that she would certainly be ok as she was bustled off to the castle, Teddy was filled with anxiety as he followed.

It was several hours later. Victoire's cracked ribs and fractured arm had been mended and the gash in her head healed, but her breathing was still strained. She lay mostly unconscious, her silvery blonde hair matted with sweat, and wheezing in the infirmary. Teddy frowned from where he sat next to her bed. She thrashed out in her sleep, and he grabbed her flailing hand and held it in his own.

The school nurse and Poppy Pomfrey's protégé, Madame Florentia, came back over to Victoire and frowned as well.

"Why is she still breathing like that?" Teddy asked anxiously, "What's wrong with her?"

Madame Florentia just pursed her lips together and bustled around Victoire, checking her pulse and taking her temperature. Teddy tried to stay out of the way the best he could without relinquishing his grip on her hand. The jostling movements caused Victoire to wake up, her eyes fluttering open slowly. She looked around her in a feverish daze, her eyes resting on Teddy as the nurse continued about her work. Teddy smiled down at her. "Hello."

"Hello," Victoire tried to reply, but ended up coughing violently instead. She winced as she did so, the action obviously causing her pain.

Teddy frowned again and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

Madame Florentia gasped during her examination of Victoire, looked once at the now frightened faces of Teddy and Victoire, before speaking. "Mr. Lupin, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"What? Why?" He asked, not moving.

"I have to finish examining my patient, and you're going to have to leave now," she responded, obviously annoyed as she moved over to him and began to push him away. Victoire tightened her grip on his hand, as she stared around with wide, fearful eyes. The nurse pulled them apart, and Teddy, seeing the fight was lost, said, "I'll be back later."

"No, you won't," Madame Florentia said quietly, so that Victoire couldn't hear as she pulled the curtains closed.

Teddy lingered by the door, hoping to overhear what was going on. He could hear Madame Florentia moving behind the curtain. He heard Victoire inhale sharply.

"Did that hurt, dear?"

Teddy didn't hear Victoire respond, but figured she must have nodded because Madame Florentia said, "Just as I suspected; I'll be right back."

"Can Teddy come back now?"

Teddy felt like he was eight-years old all over again, and the sun was setting, the dinner plates had been cleared away and Victoire's voice cried out "But why does Teddy have to go home, now? I want him to stay."

"I'm afraid he can't, dear," he heard the strict, but kindly nurse reply. He slipped out of the door as she came around the curtains.

"Teddy! Teddy!"

He turned his head to find who was calling him, and saw Dominique and Louis coming down the corridor. They had left to send a letter to Bill and Fleur, and, on Teddy's insistence, had gone down to dinner with the promise of bringing him back some food. He, in turn, had promised the fiercely protective Dominique that he wouldn't leave Victoire's bedside until they returned, and a accusing glint sparked in the blue eye's that were so much like her sister's as she registered his presence outside the hospital wing.

"Madame Florentia made me leave," he said as they approached, wasting no time in providing an explanation in the hopes of warding off a mauling.

"What! Why?" The two siblings interrogated him simultaneously.

"I don't know," he shrugged, "she just said that she needed to examine her patient and pushed me away."

"That's ridiculous," Dominique spat, "I'm going in there." And with a toss of her strawberry colored locks, Dominique pulled open the heavy doors to the hospital wing and marched in. Teddy and Louis exchanged a wary look as the door slammed shut with a reverberating thud.

After a moment or two of silence, they could hear Dom's dulcet tones.

"WHAT DO I CARE IF SHE'S CONTAGIOUS; SHE'S MY SISTER!"

There was a mumbled reply.

"I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU GIVE ME AN ANSWER!"

There was another mumbled response, the sound of rapid footsteps, and a moment later the door opened, and an irked looking Madame Florentia pushed Dominique through them.

"To your dormitories," she snapped, sticking her head out the door, "all of you!" She pulled the door shut behind her.

"Well?" Teddy and Louis asked Dominique at the same time.

"Mumblemumps," she answered, brushing some invisible dust off her robes. "She looks awful…her cheeks and neck are swelling by the second."

Teddy frowned. He knew Victoire had looked sick before the game, and he should have said something or insisted that she not play. He was certain the beating she had received hadn't helped her condition any.

"We better send another owl to Mum and Dad," Louis suggested. Dominique nodded and with a "see you later, Teddy," and a wave, the two of them headed off to the owlery.

Teddy headed back to the dormitory his thoughts still very much with Victoire.

"Password?" The Fat Lady asked when he reached the portrait hole.

"Diricawl," he responded, coughing slightly into the crook of his elbow.

The portrait swung open, and, thinking of how good his comfortable four-poster sounded, he headed straight for his dormitory. He stretched out on his bed, and quickly fell asleep, no doubt making up for the sleep he'd lost the night before and the stressful day.

Teddy woke up shortly after one a.m. He was a little disoriented at first, and he looked around him confused as to why he was still in his robes and uniform. He felt sweaty, probably because he's gone to sleep in all his winter wear, wool pants and jumper and all. Teddy changed into something more comfortable and crawled back into bed, thinking the best thing to do at this hour was to try and sleep some more.

Except, that sleep eluded him and his thoughts kept drifting back to Victoire lying alone in the hospital wing. She had looked so frightened when she grasped his hand, that he couldn't bear to leave her down there. Sensing sleep was not in his near future, Teddy slipped quietly out of his bed, grabbed his wand, the Marauder's Map and his father's journal. He closed the door to the dormitory quietly behind him and stealthily headed to the hospital wing.

He pulled out the Map to check for Madame Florentia's presence once more before he opened the door slightly, making sure to only let in a small sliver of light lest he wake anyone else up. He padded lightly over to Victoire's bed to ascertain her appearance. Her blonde hair was matted with sweat to the pillow behind her head, which she kept moving restlessly side from side and mumbling as though she was having a nightmare. Dominique had been right about the swelling; her cheeks and neck puffed out in a toad like manner.

Teddy was deeply upset by Victoire's appearance. She looked absolutely awful, and so sick it nearly broke his heart. Tentatively, he reached out and brushed a sweaty lock of hair away from her face, bringing his hand back quickly to stifle a cough that had risen in his throat. He located the chair he'd sat in earlier and settled in.

"_Lumos_," he said, causing his wand tip to alight. Teddy pulled out his father's journal and began to read, for once not caring about the dates. If he had to sit here all night and read the whole damn book, he wasn't going to leave Victoire.

_March 2nd, 1978_

_Padfoot is in detention, Prongs is in detention, Peter is in detention! And me, I'm in the library. While I definitely participated in the prank we pulled at breakfast today, my role was quiet enough that I managed to weasel my way out of detention. Which is great, and it was bloody good fun to lord it over James and Peter. But now, I'm bored..._

"Teddy?" He thought he heard Victoire call after a few minutes of reading. He couldn't be sure if that's what she said, since it sounded so garbled. He looked up from the journal. Victoire was staring at him through tired eyes.

"Hey, Vic," he said quietly, leaning forward to reach out and grab her hand. He was happy to see her conscious, even if it was at two in the morning. "Do you need anything?"

"Water," she mumbled, looking slightly confused. "Whyareyouhere?"

"Sorry?" He inquired, as he conjured a cup and filled it with water.

"Why--" Victoire started. She winced and stopped abruptly.

"Don't speak if it hurts," Teddy said, trying to hand her the cup.

She swatted it away, with an annoyed look on her face. He didn't take it personally; he was well aware that feeling helpless frustrated Victoire. She shook her head, swallowed, and asked, "Why are you here?" She obviously put a lot of effort into her annunciation and winced again.

Teddy paused for a moment as he thought of what to say. "I couldn't leave you down here. Contagious or not, you are still my best friend."

Victoire looked like she tried to smile, but the swelling got in her way. Rather than trying to speak anymore, she pointed at the cup of water he was still holding. Teddy helped her sit up enough to drink a little, before she lay back down.

Teddy sat back down as well, pulling the chair a little closer so he could easily hold her hand. Victoire pointed weakly at the book in his lap. "Oh," he responded to her silent question, "just something I was reading before you woke up." Teddy still didn't feel comfortable telling Victoire about his father's journal.

Victoire raised an eyebrow at his elusive answer, and just continued to stare at him as though she was attempting to read his mind.

"You should get some rest," he suggested.

She shrugged. A moment later, she pointed at the book again.

"Do...do you want me to read it to you?"

Victoire nodded.

"Oh..." he hesitated. But, Victoire continued to stare at him with those blue eyes of hers. Her brow was shiny with sweat, and she looked so pathetic, that he knew he'd never be able to say no. I mean, he couldn't normally, and now she looked all sick and angelic. So with a heavy sigh, he released Victoire's hand, picked up the journal and began to read.

_March 4th, 1978_

_Hogsmeade trip today. I met up with Anne at the Three Broomsticks for a date. It feels very odd to be writing that, but Padfoot and Prongs finally convinced me to just go for it. "You're only young once," James told me. Padfoot reminded me in his usual tactful manner that I didn't have to tell her about my being a werewolf on the first date or anything, though shagging her would be good. James and Lily had both slapped him on the head for that statement…_

"Uncleharrysparents?" Victoire interrupted. Teddy smiled sheepishly and nodded. Victoire nodded, rolled over onto her back, and pointed to indicate that he should continue.

…_Even Lily, who has now become officially aware of "my furry little problem" (though she insists that she figured it out in third year), pushed me to just ask Anne out. She's Anne's best friend, and says that she's completely around the bend for me. All in all, I'd have to say their little pep talk was encouraging. I also must admit, its nice having Lily around more often. Now, I'm not at the library alone so much. We'll just say she is a lot better at convincing Prongs to study than I ever was..._

Everything in the hospital wing was still and quiet, except for the two of them. Teddy kept reading aloud, sitting close to Victoire and making sure to keep his voice low until his eyes grew heavy. Looking up from the page, he noticed that she was asleep. He thought she looked more peaceful than she did before. He coughed a little and wiped the sweat off his forehead. His head was starting to ache terribly. Now that Victoire was sleeping peacefully, Teddy considered going back to the dormitory since he was feeling so sluggish. He closed the book and leaned forward once more to brush away the strand of hair that fallen across her face and settled by her mouth.

"Stupid hair," he mused aloud, repeating the words Victoire so often used herself.

Teddy's thoughts turned to his dream from the night before, and the lingering regret and fear that it had left him with. Victoire had been right in the dream; he was always keeping secrets from her. The secret of his father's journal, and the love for her he kept wrapped up and buried in his chest. He'd put off telling Victoire for months after their conversation by the Room of Requirement, but now he resolved to tell her soon. What if her injuries had been worse? Or she had contracted a more dangerous disease? Teddy shuddered at the thought.

But, now was not the moment to tell Victoire about his feelings, so he decided to leave before Madame Florentia woke up and raised hell at his presence. On a whim, he leaned forward one last time and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead. In her sleep, she swatted at his head. Teddy chuckled and stood.

Maybe he shouldn't have stood up so fast, or maybe he shouldn't have stood up at all. The edges of his vision were tinged black. Feeling distinctly weak in the arms and legs, he felt behind him for the chair he'd been sitting in a moment before. There was a clatter of wood against stone, and then everything went black and silent.

**A/N: Dun dun dun. Any guesses as to whats going to happen next? Sorry, if i scared anyone with the nightmare, I just needed you guys to empathize with poor Teddy. **


	10. Convalescence and Celebration

**A/N: For everyone who got the flu or another nasty virus this season.**

"**One of us is gonna be here, and one of us is gonna be running off alone into the great unknown."**

**-Blow Away by A Fine Frenzy**

_He was running. The powdery snow gave under his paws as he pressed on through the wintery air, howling with the pack_…

A loud giggle brought Teddy round to consciousness, and he opened his eyes slowly. He was tucked tightly into a bed that was not his own in what appeared to be the hospital wing. James Potter sat at the foot of Teddy's bed, though he seemed to be engaged in conversation with the bed to Teddy's left and did not notice his newly found consciousness. Teddy looked to his left and saw Victoire sitting up in bed, laughing. She was, of course, the source of the loud giggle that had woken him up. Roxy was perched at the end of her bed, talking animatedly. Louis, Molly, Lucy and Fred were all in chairs next to her bedside, listening to Roxy's story with rapt attention. Dominique, however, was nowhere in sight.

"What's going on?"

_OW!_ Teddy thought, as a burning pain shot through his throat. While he had been able to speak without mumbling, his throat felt raspy and inflamed.

"Oi, look who is awake!" James announced, punching Teddy in the leg in what he obviously thought was an appropriate way to greet a convalescent. Teddy kicked out, and consequently kicked James off his bed and onto his arse.

Victoire beamed at him. "Welcome back, Teddy," she said sweetly.

"How long have I been out?"

"Two, maybe three days."

"What! I've been unconscious for three days?" He exclaimed in surprise despite the pain speaking caused him.

"Well, no. You've woken up before, but you probably don't remember. Fever, you know?"

"Oh." He wondered if he had revealed anything embarrassing while he was in his semi-conscious state. Then he thought if he didn't remember anything from his fever, then Victoire probably didn't either, including the secret about the journal. An interesting mix of relief and disappointment flooded Teddy at the thought. "Did I get mumblemumps, too?" He asked the obvious question as he attempted to remember how he got into the hospital bed. "How did I get here?"

"Well, obviously you got the mumblemumps," James scoffed, sitting on Teddy's bed again, "you looked like a toad for days." He had a knack for comforting people, James Potter did. Teddy once again tried to kick James off, but the boy dodged his foot and sat on his ankles to keep him from trying again. Teddy scowled, his illness making him rather less patient than he normally was.

"Anyway...I don't really remember this, but apparently I woke up and you were lying on the floor next to my bed. So I called for Madame Florentia, and she levitated you into the nearest bed."

"I'd be careful, Teddy," Roxy piped up.

"Yeah," Freddie joined, "Madame Florentia isn't very happy with you."

"Why?" Teddy asked. Wasn't it enough that he was ill? Did someone have to be angry with him as well? Was their no justice in this world? Would James ever get off his foot?

"Well, she kicked us--you, specifically--out of the hospital wing because Victoire was contagious and then you snuck back in the middle of the night, and, as prophecized, fell ill yourself," Louis explained in his thorough, lofty way. He was a real stickler for detail, and his explanations were never very succinct. Teddy thought he'd make a great barrister someday.

"Yeah," James said, because he just had to say something, "and she took thirty-five points away from Gryffindor for being stupid."

"What!"

"Don't worry," Molly interjected, finally joining the conversation, "Professor Longbottom came by to visit, and he gave all but five of the points back because you displayed 'true Gryffindor loyalty and spirit'."

"Which unfortunately only made Madame Florentia angrier," Roxy finished, and everyone grimaced in acknowledgement.

Victoire rolled her eyes at everyone as Madame Florentia bustled into the hospital wing levitating a tray of food in front of her. The assembled Weasleys and James scattered as she approached Victoire's bed.

"Off with you now. My patient needs to eat," she ordered. Fred, Roxy, Louis, Molly, Lucy, and James waved good-bye and hurried out of the wing. Apparently, none of them were very keen on testing Madame Florentia's patience that day.

She set the tray on Victoire's lap, saying, "Here you go, dear. Eat up; you need all your strength."

"Thank you," Victoire replied.

As Madame Florentia stood up, she noticed that Teddy was awake. "You're awake, are you?" She said with a great hurumph. "Well, let's have a look then." She came over to Teddy's bed and drew the curtains around him. She felt his neck (none too gently, he might add), illuminated her wand to look inside his ears, and had him say, "ahhhh" at least twenty times. Teddy swore he felt twice as bad as he did before she examined him and shoved several different potions down his throat.

"That was brutal," he complained as Madame Florentia left the wing with a promise of bringing in some food for Teddy.

"It isn't so bad," Victoire shrugged, slurping down some delicious smelling chicken noodle soup.

"Well, maybe not for you," he argued, "she likes you."

"Stop being such a baby, Teddy," she retorted, though a large smile played around her lips.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Just a little. And not nearly as much as Dex."

"What's Dex got to do with this?"

"Iblameyouforthis," someone mumbled from the bed to the right of Teddy. The curtains were pulled around it, so Teddy couldn't see who it was though he had a pretty good idea.

"Dex! Is that you, mate?" Teddy smiled; he almost felt like laughing.

Dexter Gadsby was the only Slytherin friend that Teddy had. He made up for his less-than-appealing house by being the coolest guy Teddy knew and not going in for the Pureblood mania. That is not to say he wasn't a callous, manipulative bastard. When Teddy had questioned him about his beliefs on blood class, Dexter had responded with, "I'd take a clever mutt over a pedigreed nitwit with a dwindling fortune any day. However, if the fortune isn't dwindling…"

Teddy had thought he'd been joking at first and laughed. But when he realized that Dexter was completely serious, he was shocked. But in the end, Teddy figured that that comment fit in perfectly with who Dex was. Dexter, who considered himself to be of the clever mutt variety, was also dangerously ambitious and determined to be the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Prophet. He used his natural charm and good looks to befriend the people who could help him get there—the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, and the famous. The latter was the reason he initially made an effort to get to know Teddy, the godson of _the_ Harry Potter and one of the last descendents of the Blacks to boot. Teddy, however, had quickly caught on to Dexter's game and turned the tables. Dexter had been impressed and the two formed a genuine friendship over it, though Teddy was still wary of bringing him around the Potters. Or Victoire. Or any girls over the age of fifteen, for that matter, because Dex liked to employ his charm and good looks for other gains as well.

He was also a good friend of Brian's for reasons Teddy could only guess at. While smart enough, Brian did not particularly excel at his lessons, was not wealthy, nor did he come from a famous family. Brian was the essence of a decent bloke with a kind heart and a good sense of humor; not exactly Dexter's type, though Teddy had a sneaking suspicion Dex admired Brian for the same reason he did. Brian was content to want and pursue the simple things from life, like a "good job" that he liked "reasonably well" and a house, a wife, and a handful of kids. All these desires Brian readily admitted without shame or embarrassment, a novelty for a teenaged boy and something neither Teddy nor Dexter could boast about.

"Youhandedmethemegaphone," Dexter muttered in response to Teddy's greeting.

"Sorry? What was that?"

"He said that you handed him the megaphone you use to commentate the Quidditch games with, and he got sick because of it."

Teddy nodded. "Ah, don't feel too badly about it. You know deep down that you must have done something to deserve this."

"Giiiittttt," Dex groaned back through the curtain, sounding sleepy.

"Git," Victoire translated.

"Funnily enough, I managed to pick that one up myself," Teddy scoffed.

Victoire shrugged again, finished her soup and brought a bowl of flavored gelatin closer to her. As she began to scarf it down, Teddy's stomach rumbled, and he wondered when the last time he ate had been.

"Here's your lunch, then," Madame Florentia said by way of greeting as she plopped a tray of food on Teddy's bedside table. She helped him sit up, and placed it on his lap. Grateful for sustenance and anxious to dive into a bowl of that chicken noodle soup Victoire had devoured, Teddy managed to smile brightly at the nurse who raised an eyebrow in response. He was confident he'd win her over eventually.

"Stubborn brat," he thought he heard her mutter as she walked away.

Or, maybe not.

Teddy looked down at his tray and was dismayed to find that it was devoid of all the things that were on Victoire's tray. Instead of a cool glass of pumpkin juice, buttered toast, and the aforementioned soup and gelatin, he had a tepid cup of tea without cream and sugar, lukewarm broth, and a bland-looking biscuit.

He groaned. "She hates me doesn't she?"

Victoire looked over at Teddy's tray. "Maybe. I mean, that's what I had to eat at first too, but at least mine came with gelatin."

He scowled and bit into the biscuit, determined to like it. "Ugh, it tastes like wood," he cried as he attempted to chew it.

"youwouldknow," another familiar voice mumbled from across the room. Teddy whose mumbling-to-English translation skills were improving by the minute only knew of one person who would say something as vulgar as that in a situation like theirs.

"Denny! How nice of you to join us," Teddy called, the pain in his throat ebbing thanks to one of Madame Florentia's potions.

"Pissoff," Denny grumbled, sounding as if her were about to drift asleep behind the curtains surrounding his bed.

"We've got quite the party going on here," Teddy mused aloud, chiefly addressing Victoire.

"That we do," she replied absentmindedly, placing her tray of food on her bedside table. Teddy, thinking he'd rather starve than try to eat more of the food Madame Florentia brought him also moved his tray to the bedside table. "Dom's here too," Victoire continued as she began to flip through a copy of Witch Weekly, "though she refuses to speak or see anyone until her face returns to normal."

Teddy chuckled as he lay back against his pillow. "Too bad most people seem too tired to be up for much," he commented.

"Yeah, the mumblemumps do that to a person. You'll probably be ready for a kip soon yourself."

"Me?" Teddy yawned, "I just woke up."

"Suit yourself, then."

But, determined as he was to stay awake, his eyes did feel rather heavy as he sank into his pillow. He decided to shut them for just a moment and was asleep within minutes.

Days passed by in a haze of sleep and brief periods of consciousness for Teddy. When they were awake, he'd chat and play games with Victoire and Dexter. As they were not allowed to leave the hospital wing, Teddy reveled in having Victoire's nearly undivided attention. They spent countless hours employed in conversation while the others slept. Without the distraction of class or their peers, it almost felt like the summer holidays to Teddy, those blissful few months where he got to have Victoire all to himself.

It was in these hours that Teddy learned how the mumblemumps had come to Hogwarts. Victoire explained to him that she had originally picked up the mumblemumps from a couple who had just returned from holiday in Mexico.

"Remember, Teddy," she said, "we met them at the Three Broomsticks, and they had all those funny hats they let me try on."

He remembered. How could he forget how ridiculous Victoire had looked in the wide-brimmed sombrero? Her desire to travel the world had led Victoire to introduce herself to the strangers, and she had bombarded them with an endless array of questions about Aztec temples, beaches, deserts, and Mayan ruins until their friends had showed up to collect their souvenirs. Well, apparently, the couple and most of their friends had ended up in St. Mungo's with swollen necks, fevers, and wicked headaches. The end result of which was a rash of Hogwart's students filling the hospital wing with the same symptoms.

And, it was late one night that the mystery of Victoire's bizarre behavior was explained. As it turned out, she hadn't been using Teddy as a surrogate boyfriend at all, but instead had been using other boys as a surrogate him. She had treated her date with Lucas Hynes as a job interview, to see if he would be interesting enough to hang out with after Teddy left Hogwarts, after she realized that he was her only friend that was not related to her.

"Why a boy?" He asked.

"Because the girls don't talk to me," she explained sadly, "except for Chrys, and that's only because she's going out with Brian."

"You'll make friends, Vic," he replied. What else could he say?

"Not one's like you."

Teddy turned his head away, unable to bear seeing Victoire look so sad, until there was a shift of weight in his bed. He felt Victoire's soft arms wrap around his torso. He looked down to see her rest her face against his chest and sigh softly. Teddy saw the pattern now.

It all stemmed from the same truth. Victoire was going to miss him. Sometimes, it manifested itself in an almost desperate need to hang onto to him and their childhood, and, at others, she wanted to distance herself from him, hoping to make the separation easier to bear. Victoire was feeling just about as torn as he was.

Teddy sighed, too. He gave Victoire a quick squeeze before she flounced back to her own bed, and they said goodnight.

And so the days pressed on. The cousins came back to visit every once and a while, Brian stopped by to fill Dex and Teddy in on what they were missing in class. Rather than making him feel better, Brian's visit only increased Teddy's anxiety about N.E.W.T.s. Apparently, he was missing quite a lot of important test information during his convalescence, and though he had received his acceptance letter from the Auror training program earlier that week, it could still be revoked if he didn't garner the proper N.E.W.T qualifications. Brian good-heartedly promised to bring his books around for him and extras for Dexter, so that they could study while they recovered from their illnesses.

Studying, however, proved very unsuccessful for either of them. Teddy, Dexter, and Victoire spent most of their time attempting to toss Exploding Snap cards into clean bedpans at the foot of the beds. It was a fun, unpredictable game because you never knew when the cards would blow-up.

There game was interrupted one day when Jamie Kidd stopped by to visit Victoire. And while Teddy knew that he was a just being a good teammate by visiting Victoire and bringing her notes from their shared classes, Teddy really disliked the way he pulled his chair close to her bedside. He thought it far too forward and intimate an action when Jamie began twiddling absentmindedly with a stray thread on Victoire's blanket. Never did he hate to see Victoire laugh before Jamie Kidd made her do it.

BOOM!

Teddy coughed and waved away the cloud of black smoke from his bed. He hadn't been paying enough attention to how he tossed his cards and the sizeable stack he'd accumulated in his bedpan had exploded. Madame Florentia stuck her head out of her office, wearing a very disapproving look that clearly warned him that one more explosion like that and there would be no more Exploding Snap for him. He scowled at her when she stuck her head back in.

Teddy felt Dexter's eyes on him, and he turned to find his friend staring at him curiously, a dangerous look when worn by him.

"What?" Teddy asked, "Do I got soot on my nose or something?"

"You don't like it." Dexter said.

"Don't like what?" Teddy asked annoyed at the cryptic statement. Though, the fact that Jamie Kidd was holding lightly on to Victoire's elbow as he escorted her to the bathroom door irked him as well.

"You don't like that Mr. Kidd has replaced you as court jester," Dexter replied, with a small self-satisfied sneer at his own metaphor.

Teddy sighed inwardly. Was he really so obvious in his infatuation with Victoire that nearly everybody had caught on? Even Madame Florentia had dropped a hint or two about it in the last few days.

"Isn't it usually your job to entertain the princess?" Dexter ruthlessly pressed on.

Dexter wasn't very fond of Victoire. Mostly because she was the only girl that had ever said no to him and then erupted into hearty laughter. Dexter wouldn't let go of the grudge, despite Teddy's insistence that it wasn't Victoire's fault that Cauldron Cakes were her favorite snack food, and, therefore, eating them made her happy enough to amp up the pheromones and make the boys around her melt into pools of jelly and declare their undying devotion to her. These were, of course, the unfortunate circumstances under which Dexter met Victoire. Ever since then, he liked to jibe Teddy over his friendship with her.

Teddy rolled his eyes in defiance, but Dexter just raised an eyebrow. He knew he was right; that's one of the things that made him annoying: he always knew when he was right. "Yeah, so what?" Teddy said, caving under the pressure.

"Why don't you do something about it?"

"I'm planning to," he replied out of the corner of his mouth as Victoire returned to her bed. Jamie had ended his visit when Victoire had entered the loo.

There was silence for a few minutes as Victoire flipped through yet another copy of Witch Weekly, Teddy pondered his options, and Dexter continued to wait for Teddy to prove that he was actually going to do something about it.

"So..." he began like the master of eloquence that he was, "Jamie Kidd is a nice chap, isn't he?"

Victoire didn't even look up from her magazine to respond. "Yes, nice enough, but he could definitely improve as a Chaser," she said nonchalantly.

Teddy smiled for the first time since Jamie Kidd had appeared in the hospital wing and tossed a smug look Dexter's way.

"Oohhhh, Dominique," Victoire squealed. Dom's fever had broken a few days ago, but she had insisted on keeping the curtains up until this morning when she was finally satisfied that she had not sustained any permanent damage to her mug. "Look. At. These. Boots!"

Dominique lifted her head curiously as Victoire, with a flick of her wand, levitated the magazine across the room to her sister.

"They are so cute!" Dominique squealed just like Victoire. "OH! And they come in this light green color, which will look just fantastic with my hair! And sapphire blue for you, Vic!"

"No Way!"

Teddy thought that once the women start squealing it was time to draw the curtain and take another nap. He looked over, hoping to share a aren't-those-birds-nutters look with Dexter only to find that his friend was already feigning sleep. He scrunched down into his own pillows and shut his eyes, not really feeling tired enough for a nap. But, it did offer time for reflection.

Teddy still hadn't figured out how he was going to tell Victoire that he was in love with her. And while they had spent every waking moment in each other's company for the past five days, he felt that a crowded hospital wing wasn't quite the romantic setting he was looking for. He'd have to be on the look out for opportunities once they were allowed to return to their normal lives.

True to his word, when Teddy and Victoire were discharged by Madame Florentia the next day, he began a vigilant search for the 'right moment' to declare his feelings. But, with the rapidly approaching N.E.W.T.s and O.W.L.s there were not many opportunities to be had. He considered telling her one night in the library, after all their other study partners had given up and gone to bed and only he and she remained, necks strained from combing through dusty tomes for anything that might or might have ever been on a standardized examination. But, what kind of story would that make? And, if she took it badly this close to their tests, each of their scores might suffer for it. Teddy came to the conclusion that confessing his love was just simply going to have to wait until after their tests were over.

Days flew into weeks and months and very soon Teddy found himself biting his nails as he reviewed what he wrote on his Defense Against the Dark Arts test with the weight of several more tortuous exams to come hanging over him. But anything he dreaded always seem to come and go with a speed that defied the laws of physics, and before he knew it, Teddy found that he didn't feel nastily exhausted at all (though he considered he might the next day), and actually felt elated to be done with school. Earlier that day he'd passed the Marauder's Map onto James, figuring he would no longer be needing it, his trunk was packed, and the only thing he had left to do was tell Victoire his feelings.

It was with elation that Teddy stood back and surveyed the mayhem he created with a satisfied smirk. His graduating class was cutting loose after finishing their exams in a grand way. A few people had uncorked several bottles of champagne and were dancing gleefully in its spray. Others were sitting on tables while couples snogged on sofas and chairs. All the windows had already been broken twice as a year's worth of confiscated Fanged Frisbees and Weasley products zoomed around. It was fantastic.

Teddy's eyes scanned the room. Dominique was in a corner chatting up a hapless looking fourth-year boy while simultaneously sending Molly flirting advice. Molly, who was leaning up against the wall, was attempting to follow Dom's cues while Barry Howard cleaned his glasses and talked broomsticks, oblivious to the poor girl's attempt to catch his notice. Teddy chuckled and continued searching the common room for the one person he really wanted to see. She wasn't the only one absent from the party, either. Teddy hadn't seen James, Fred, and Roxy since he'd given him the map. Shoving the possible scenes of anarchy those three could have been engaging in out of his mind, he kept looking. Louis had just leapt out of the way of a spilled bottle of Butterbeer and was now heading up to the boys' staircase with a book in hand. Lucy was perched on the bottom step of the girls' staircase, no doubt feeling out of her element, but still there was no Victoire.

A heavy clunk and a collection of gasps brought Teddy's attention around to a table where a couple had been dancing moments before.

"What happened?" Someone asked.

"I don't know…he must of hit his head on the chandelier…"

No sooner had the words left her mouth than a fifth-year boy popped out from beneath the table pumping his fists into the air and shouting, "I'm all right!"

The room cheered and went back to partying. The sound of breaking glass informed Teddy that another window had broken. He turned to repair it, but met Victoire instead.

"_Reparo_," she said, pointing her wand at the window. "Hi."

Teddy smiled at her and greeted, "Hi to you, too. Where have you been?"

"Recuperating," she shrugged and grabbed a glass of champagne as it floated by on a tray. "O.W.L.s, you know?"

Teddy laughed. "Yeah, I know." He sipped his glass of firewhiskey wondering why their conversation seemed so awkward. Victoire was being quiet, but then again so was he with his forthcoming confession weighing on his mind.

He thought that Victoire had outdone herself in a short, silvery dress with her favorite scarf draped loosely around her neck. While she looked gorgeous, Teddy knew that Victoire only put extra effort into her appearance if she was trying to hide something, like the truth as to why she was late to the party. He frowned.

At that moment, several young wizards ran by wearing witches robes and hollering like someone had set a Blast-Ended Skrewt on them.

"Great party, Head Boy," Victoire commented, taking a small sip of her champagne as she slipped an arm around his waist.

"Thanks," he replied, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, "I guess there's a little Rio in me, after all."

"I wish you didn't have to leave."

"I hardly think they'd let me come back once they see the damage I've caused," Teddy laughed, ending abruptly when he felt Victoire squeeze him and bury her face into the side of his chest. "Hey, Vic--what's wrong?"

She didn't look up at him. She just shook her head. Teddy heard her sniffle.

"Are you crying?" He asked alarmed. "Please, don't cry, Victoire. We'll still see each other on breaks and everything; nothing is going to change." Except, that he had planned on attempting to change everything that night, but he felt it was the comforting lie that Victoire needed to hear at the moment.

"Its just that I'm going to miss not seeing you everyday," she mumbled into his shirt.

Teddy didn't have a response for that, because he was going to miss that too. "Hey," he said, feeling now was as good as time as any to try to find a little privacy, "do you want to get out of here?"

Victoire nodded, before pulling back. "Yes," she replied, wiping her tears with the heel of her palm. Still, with their arms slung around each other, Teddy and Victoire set their mostly full glasses down and left the noisy common room. They passed Brian and Chrys in the corridor as they subconsciously headed out to the grounds, and Brian flashed Teddy an encouraging smile and nod.

Victoire perked up once the two of them were alone. She released her grip on his waist to walk backwards in front of him. "You know what we need?" She asked, bouncing up and down.

"What?" Teddy replied.

"We need to do something mad! Something wild!"

"We do?"

"Yep; were going to break a rule or something that you've always wanted to but never did! So...Teddy 'top of his class" Lupin, Head Boy and Hogwarts graduate, what is it going to be?"

"Uhhhhh..."

"That's not an answer," Victoire chided with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised impatiently.

"I'm working on it," Teddy responded, deep in thought. "Hmmm...do you mind getting wet?"

Victoire smiled mischievously at the question. "Not at all."

**A/N: Thanks for reading, everyone! More to come!**


End file.
